PSP, PTI back small traders' demand for resuming commercial activities.

KARACHI -- Condemning what he called a biased approach of the provincial government towards city traders during the lockdown, Pak Sarzameen Party chairman Syed Mustafa Kamal has supported all legitimate demands of the business community and demanded immediate reopening of commercial activities.

He said this while talking to a delegation of small traders led by All Karachi Tajir Ittehad president Atiq Mir here at the PSP's Pakistan House headquarters on Tuesday night.

The city traders have been visiting different political parties to seek their support for the resumption of their businesses under new guidelines since they were not satisfied with the current standard operating procedures (SOPs) that permit them to do online business without even opening full shutters of their shops.

First they visited the headquarters of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan, then the Jamaat-i-Islami, which held a demonstration also in favour of their demands, and then the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and PSP.

Traders' delegation calls on Mustafa Kamal and Khurram Sher Zaman to seek their support

Mr Mir and members of his delegation informed the PSP chief about their issues and told him that they had rejected the draft of SOPs for online business prepared by the Sindh government.

They said a 'step-motherly treatment' was being meted out to the Karachi traders and it should be stopped forthwith.

The traders sought PSP support to reopen their businesses as the provincial government had failed to implement its SOPs for other businesses.

Mr Kamal said that there was a dangerous impression prevailing among the people of Karachi that they had been neglected for long in government employment but now 'the last surviving source of employment, business, is also being destroyed by corrupt and incompetent provincial and federal governments'.

He said that Karachi paid 68 per cent of the national revenue but was still deprived of its basic rights.

He criticised the elected representatives belonging to Karachi for failing to resolve even basic issues of the country's commercial capital.

'The current system and rulers have completely failed to solve the problems of the people. People's patience is fast running out, and no power on earth can control them if they take to the streets against this corrupt system,' he said. 'Incompetent and corrupt rulers value their political and personal interests more than the national interest.'

He demanded that all traders be allowed to resume...