According to local media on Sunday (21 November), the Pakistan Petroleum Dealers Association (PPDA) called for a nationwide strike for November 25 because they are “not interested in selling petrol at poor profit margins.”
As per the spokesperson of the association, Thursday 25th November will be observed as a strike by all petrol pumps across the country.
Moreover, the spokesperson said, “We have no way but to go on strike as the government has failed to meet the November 17 deadline for fulfillment of our demands.” Additionally, the spokesperson added that the petrol pumps of Gilgit Baltistan and Kashmir will also remain closed on Thursday.
The spokesperson briefed that If the government continues to offer false consolation, the strike could be extended for an “unspecified period.”
The union has called for a strike for the second time in less than three weeks. They had planned to make a similar announcement on November 5 but backed out after a government team agreed to enhance their petroleum product sales margins by 6% within a few days.
To ensure the agreement’s implementation, a committee led by Secretary of Petroleum Dr. Arshad Mahmood was constituted over the next 10 days with authorization from the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) and the federal cabinet.
However, two weeks after the agreement, things are still stuck in a stalemate. “The petrol dealers have been in financial ‘tatters’ due to high costs of doing business and low margins of returns,” PPDA Chairman Abdul Sami Khan said at a joint press conference held on November 3 at the Karachi Press Club’s auditorium. In the face of escalating energy bills, he claimed the government only guaranteed a 2% margin on fuel oil sales.
“We demand that the government withdraw our petrol pump licenses,” he stated, adding that “almost half of the petrol stations will close down permanently as no one will reapply for acquisition if the licenses are canceled.”
Furthermore, he demanded, “Immediate increase on ex-depot price in dealers’ margin for HSD and MS without burdening common people and without increasing prices of petroleum products, absorbing dealers’ margin increase by reducing Sales Tax and PDL.”
