In a bid to condemn the recent levying of taxes through three Presidential Ordinances, Faisalabad Yarn and Grey Cloth Markets were remained closed and no business was conducted, here Monday, while the strike of textile sizing industries remained closed on the second consecutive day.
Industrialists, yarn dealers, cloth merchants, traders and textile workers took out protest procession against the 17.5 percent sale tax and flood tax on the income tax payers and staged demonstration at Chowk Clock Tower. The processionists, who were carrying placards and banners and chanting anti-public heavy taxes slogans against the government and strongly demanded that all three ordinances should be withdrawn immediately.
Addressing the participants of rally, Syed Fahim Mehmood Shah, Chairman, Pakistan Yarn Merchants Association (PYMA) Punjab and Khabir Pakhtoon Khaw Zone, Shakeel Ahmad Ansari, Chairman, All Pakistan Sizing Industries Association, Waheed Khaliq Ramey, Chairman, Council of Looms Owners and other trade leaders Mirza Muhammad Shafique, Abbas Haider Sheikh, Rana Muhammad Amin and Rana Talib Hussain out rightly rejected the mini-budget enforcement through three Ordinances and announced that the protestation will be continued and they would start long march toward Islamabad.
Speakers said that the PPP government had mortgaged the country into the hands of the IMF and World Bank, while corrupt rulers are filling their bank accounts abroad. They demanded to UNO for freezing the accounts of the rulers and this amount would be adjusted against loans for saving the Pakistan nation.
Meanwhile, an emergent meeting of all textile associations called for today (Tuesday) at Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry to decide further line of action against the government taxation policy.
Meanwhile, Chaudhry Salamat Ali, Chairman, Pakistan Hosiery Manufacturers and Exporters Association (PHMA) North Zone expressed grave concern over the taxation through ordinances and said that the value-added textile sector has vehemently rejected the withdrawal of zero-rating of export sector by the government. The new measures taken by the government would open up a floodgate of corruption to the government officials and the trade, while textile industry not in a position to bear huge taxation load, he added.