The strike call given by All Karachi Tajir Ittehad (AKTI) against extortion and traders' killings has caused activity at the Customs House, Karachi, to shrink to 30 per cent, resulting in a revenue loss of at least Rs 1.4 billion to the national exchequer. The attendance at Customs House remained normal but importers and exporters did not turn up because of the strike call.
Although no major untoward incident was reported on Wednesday, the country's financial hub was completely paralysed after a major Karachi-based political party supported the strike. Later, other political parties, local transporters' associations, petroleum dealers and others joined the traders' strike to express resentment against unabated incidents of extortion in the city. Subsequently, the civic life in the country's commercial hub came to a grinding halt, as all petrol pumps, shops and hotels across the metropolis remained closed between dawn and dusk. Even small vendors and public transport remained off the roads, forcing people to stay inside their homes.
Examinations in the Federal Urdu University of Arts, Science and Technology, Board of Intermediate, Sindh Board of Technical Education and Jinnah College for Women were postponed and the attendance in private and government offices remained thin.
Customs sources told Business Recorder that traders and their clearing agents filed Goods Declarations (GD) in low numbers, pointing out that the filing of declarations was possible online. They said traders were unable to take their cargo consignments from the port area because of the unavailability of public transport.
A Customs official said that all collectorates at Karachi Port and Port Qasim registered the same situation in connection with the filing of goods declarations. According to him, on an average, 500-600 export goods declarations are filed every day, adding that 400-450 such decalarations are filed electronically every day. The department, he said, collected a revenue of Rs 400-450 million per day. He said that the number of goods declarations filed in appraisement and preventive collectorates "is almost double" against other collectorates where containers with full load (FCL) and containers with loose load (LCL) were handled.