KHYBER
Medicine store owners at Hospital Chowk, Landi Kotal staged a protest on Saturday against what they said as “unjust” taxes imposed through electricity bills, demanding the immediate withdrawal of the additional charges.
While holding the electricity bills, the local medicines traders, flayed the authorities for charging them additional taxes in the consumer bills.
Speaking on the occasion the medicine traders, including Rehman Gul Shinwari, Irfan Shinwari, Atif Jan and others rejected the taxes, arguing that the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) had been promised a 10-year tax exemption by the federal government at the time of the merger with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The imposition of new taxes violated that commitment and placed an unbearable burden on the local business community, they regretted.
They maintained that the prolonged closure of the Torkham border for the past 11 months had already suffered trade and business activities, forcing hundreds of families to starve.
The traders further alleged that, instead of providing relief, the federal government had imposed heavy taxes through electricity bills and on other business activities, worsening the economic difficulties faced by residents of the region.
The protesters warned the senior officials of the Tribal Electric Supply Company (TESCO) that if the additional taxes were not withdrawn, they would launch an indefinite protest sit-in, which would continue until their demands were accepted.
