Petroleum transporters have announced that they will hold a peaceful protest and sit-in outside the headquarters of a state-owned oil marketing company from Wednesday onwards and threatened to cut fuel supplies across the nation.
“We have given call for an indefinite peaceful protest,” All Pakistan Oil Tankers Owners Association (APOTOA) spokesman Israr Ahmed Shinwari said while talking to The Express Tribune. “We will call off the protest only after the government accepts our demands and increase fares of fuel transportation that have remained unchanged since 2011.”
There are around 40,000 oil tankers engaged in transporting oil from the city of ports (Karachi) to the upcountry areas. “Our 40,000 members are part of the protest,” he said. “If the government failed to accept our demands within a week of protest, then we will give call for a wheel-jam strike.”
There was an agreement between the truck owners and the relevant oil marketing company that fares would be revised in accordance with the prevailing petrol and diesel prices, however, the company “violated the deal”.
APOTOA, under the umbrella of the Oil Tankers Owners Grand Committee, has prepared a list of 20 demands to be tabled before the government. However, no formal contact has so far been established between the government officials and the oil transporters. “Police officials have approached us to call off the protest so that they (police) could connect us with the officials concerned,” he said. “However, we have refused to withdraw the protest call.”
If the wheel-jam strike takes place, it will trigger an oil crisis in the country as oil trucks and tankers are a big source of fuel transportation from seaports to the rest of the country.
A former minister of Sindh, Irfanullah Khan Marwat, would address the protesters at Shireen Jinnah Colony in the morning on Wednesday. Later, they would lead a procession to the headquarters of the oil marketing company in Clifton. Elaborating other demands of the committee, Shinwari said that no private trucks should be allowed to transport oil from one point to another in the country and only those trucks, which are registered with the government, should be the part of the fleet.
“If NLC (National Logistic Cell) trucks are allowed to transport oil, then they should be allowed on the condition that they would get their tankers filled by standing in proper queues. They will have to wait for their turn and that they would not be given undue priority over others,” he said.
He said that the government should reduce charges for issuing fitness certificates for trucks, as the oil marketing company demands Rs100,000-200,000 each time.
“We have updated our trucks by expanding oil carrying capacity to 24,000 liters on the demand presented by the oil marketing company,” he said.
“Now, it is demanding us to reduce it back to 20,000 liters. This will cost around Rs100,000 per truck. There are 40,000 trucks. The alteration would cause a loss worth millions of rupees.”
“We have given no call for protest or strike at all. APOTOA (or Oil Tankers Owners Grand Committee) has no capacity to hold the protest. It will fail,” said All Pakistan Oil Tankers Contractors Association (APOTCA) President Abidullah Afridi.
Published in The Express Tribune, February 16th, 2022.
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