- ‘Only those drivers who bribe the Afghan officials are allowed to continue their journey’
PESHAWAR: All Pakistan Custom Agents Association (APCAA) Vice President Ziaul Haq Sarhadi on Saturday urged the Afghan authorities to release some 2,000 Pakistani trucks and containers being held at Khor Maidan area near Torkham Border in Afghanistan since September 5.
Ziaul Haq Sarhadi, who is also the chairman of Sarhad Chamber of Commerce’s Dry Port Standing Committee, said that the trucks, which had carried Afghan transit goods to Afghanistan from Karachi, were held on their way back to Pakistan on a plea that there was traffic rush on the Pak-Afghan road.
He claimed that only those drivers who paid a bribe to the Afghan officials were allowed to continue their journey.
Zia Sarhadi said holding of trucks by the Afghan authorities was burdening the exporters with an extra expenditure of penalty payment to shipping companies and transporters. The shipping companies allowed free time of some seven to 14 days where a truck took 20 to 30 days to reach Jalalabad from Karachi, he mentioned.
He said besides routine transportation of consignments, the exporters were being made to pay demurrage of some $120 to $160 per day to the shipping companies and such delay on account of holding of the truck by the Afghan authorities caused additional loss to them.
It also caused a shortage of trucks and containers in the market, resulting in an increase in the fares from Rs150,000 to Rs200,000 per container to Rs300,000 to Rs400,000, he pointed out.
Sarhadi claimed that due to “unjustified increase” in the expenditure of Goods in Transit Trade to Afghanistan (GITA) and Pak Afghan Transit Trade Agreement, around 70 per cent of transit trade business had been shifted from Karachi port to Chabahar and Bandar Abbass ports in Iran.
He called for a review of the transit trade agreement to remove impediments and increase bilateral trade between the two countries.
