Into the 5th day: Protest continues against Bilour matchbox factories

Stakeholders say one family’s financial woes are dragging down industry

PESHAWAR: Labourers and raw-material suppliers for matchbox manufacturing industry continued their protest for a fifth day against the Bilour family. They threatened to go on hunger strike and even self-immolate if their investment was not returned. 

Participants asked the ANP leadership and government officials on Saturday to help them recover their investment from the Bilours.

The protest began outside Peshawar Press Club on Tuesday with a number of wood and chemical business labour leaders.

Flawed business management

Asmatullah, an investor in the matchbox manufacturing industry, informed The Express Tribune they originally went into business with ANP leader and industrialist Bashir Bilour who owned two units at Hayatabad Industrial Estate.

After the assassination of Bashir, the management of the industry was transferred to Usman Bilour. However, the latter also lost his life to a cardiac arrest.

“Since the business has come under Haroon Bilour’s management, everyone’s money is in pending,” he said, adding all investors were suffering.

Haji Awal Gul invested Rs6.1 million and Haji Lala Zada invested Rs25 million in the matchbox industry with the Bilours.

When the investors met with Haroon, they were assured that the money would be returned using funds from selling their factories and bungalow. However, this is yet to transpire.

Communal loss

The protesters also sent a jirga under Mohsin Aziz and Haji Afzal, both business leaders in the community, to discuss the matter. However, Haroon presented the same excuses to them.
Aziz and Afzal implied that the Bilour family is in a financial crisis and have limited liquid assets to pay off their debts at this time.

Labour leader Nazir Ahmad said people who worked in the matchbox industry come from underprivileged backgrounds. “The owners of the company have not paid the labourers with any salary for several months. With more than 300 labourers, owed salaries alone are worth Rs11.9 million.”

According to protesters, the Bilour family were at least Rs200 million in debt in the matchbox business. They added any delay in the payment to the business community would result in losses on a routine basis.

The businessmen asked government officials and especially ANP leaders to play their role in obtaining payments from the Bilour family.

Protesters announced they would go on a hunger strike if their investments were not returned, followed by public self-immolation as the last resort.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 8^th, 2015.