PAKISTAN: Cement exporters stop supply to Afghanistan

LANDIKOTAL: Cement exporters union Thursday again stopped at least 1,000 trucks carrying cement from Pakistan to Afghanistan and Central Asian states to record their protest against double increase in entry tax by the Afghan authorities. 

The trucks, each loaded with 50 tons cement, were stopped at Torkham border on both sides of the Pakistan and Afghanistan to force the Afghan authorities to withdraw the tax hike immediately. “The Afghan officials have increased the soil tax twice in two months, which is not affordable for truckers,” a transporter, Rehmatullah, told The News. 

He said that an agreement had been reached between the transporters union and the Afghan authorities two months ago through which the Afghan government would not exceed tax from Rs5,000 per truckload of cement but the accord was being violated now.

Zakriya, an Afghan transporter whose truck had been parked at Torkham border inside Afghanistan, told The News that like in Pakistan, more than 400 trucks loaded with cement had been parked on the roadsides inside Afghanistan to protest the injustice and highhandedness of the Afghan authorities. 

A transporter, who did not want to be named, said Pakistani government and border authorities should come forward and resolve the dispute, as they would not end their protest until and unless Afghan authorities withdrew the tax immediately. 

The imposition of new tax would be tantamount to snatching bread from their children’s mouths, they added. The Afghan customs should make bound the owners of the commodity to pay the tax and not the transporters, they suggested. A wheel-jam strike would be observed till the withdrawal of the tax, they added.

The Afghan authorities doubled entry tax from Rs5,000 to Rs10,000 a few days ago, which prompted the truckers to protest, he said. When contacted both Afghan and Pakistani officials refused to comment on the issue. Sources, however, said elders of the Shinwari and Afridi tribes and some of the Afghan businessmen were trying to settle the matter.