Traders in Pakistan’s Karachi threaten to defy COVID-19 restrictions

A policeman orders shopkeepers to close their shops after authorities imposed evening lockdowns amidst rising Covid-19 coronavirus cases in Karachi on July 26, 2021. (AFP/File)

• The Sindh administration recently decided to extend the coronavirus restrictions in the province until September 15
• Traders in Karachi say they have suffered Rs3.5 billion in losses due to intermittent lockdowns in the city

KARACHI: Traders in Karachi on Friday threatened to defy an order of the Sindh administration that limited their business hours while seeking relaxations in the coronavirus restrictions during a protest demonstration held in the city.
Authorities in Sindh issued a notification on August 30, extending the COVID-19 restrictions in the province until September 15.
The new order allowed traders in all cities, except for Karachi and Hyderabad, to carry out their business activities for six days a week and keep their shops and commercial centers open until 10pm.
“We will continue our sit-in until our demands are met,” Jameel Paracha, chairman of a leading merchants’ association in Karachi, said. “If the government remains indifferent to our plight and continues to ignore our protest, we will open our shops after 8pm and keep our businesses open on Friday.”
He accused the provincial authorities of “discriminating” among its own cities, adding that Karachi was the “jugular vein” of the national economic which contributed 65 percent to the country’s revenue and paid 90 percent of the provincial taxes.
The association’s convener Rizwan Irfan said the vaccination ratio was high in Karachi, yet the government was not willing to offer the business community substantial concessions.
“We ask the government to end this discrimination,” he said. “If businesses can remain open till 10pm in other parts of the province, why not Karachi and Hyderabad? Why are two different instructions issued in one province?”
Officials say that COVID-19 positivity ratio has remained consistently high in Karachi and Hyderabad which are the biggest and most densely populated cities of the province.
The number of new coronavirus cases in Sindh declined from 2,734 on August 4 to 1,228 on September 2. According to the health department, 27,483,661 doses of different vaccines have been administered in the province, covering 34.16 percent of its eligible population.
“Almost 80 percent of the traders are now vaccinated in Karachi, and we can provide proof of that,” Paracha said. “So, why have they imposed such harsh restrictions on our businesses?”
He added that traders in the city had suffered huge losses amounting to Rs3.5 billion due to intermittent lockdowns.
Sindh’s information minister Saeed Ghani and Karachi’s commissioner Navid Sheikh could not be reached for comment despite repeated attempts.
However, the provincial parliamentary secretary for health, Qasim Soomro, told Arab News on Wednesday the government would not offer any relaxation until people started taking necessary precautions to prevent the spread of the disease.
“How can we give relaxations when no one is willing to follow the SOPs [standard operating procedures],” he said, referring to officially prescribed guidelines such as social distancing and wearing of face masks in public places.