Truck strike 'hits Afghan goods'

Ilyas Khan
BBC News, Karachi

The drivers say taxes and bribes cost them $6,500 a year

Thousands of tonnes of goods in transit to Afghanistan are piling up in the Pakistani city of Peshawar because of a truckers strike, traders say.

The truckers are protesting about increased taxes in Afghanistan and roadside extortion by warlords.

Landlocked Afghanistan receives most of its imports via the Pakistani sea port of Karachi.

Most supplies are taken to Kabul and northern Afghanistan through Peshawar and over the Khyber Pass.

They include supplies for Western forces fighting the Taleban, as well as supplies for non-governmental organisations, the government and Afghan traders.

Traders said on Monday that more than 6,000 tonnes of durable goods destined for Afghanistan, as well as thousands of tonnes of fruit and vegetables due to be taken to Kabul, had been held up.

Talks failure

The truckers are protesting because they say the Afghan government has raised road taxes and toll fees by more than 11 times in the past year.

They also complain of extortion by security personnel at various points on the road to Kabul.

The Kabul government is not expected to bring down the taxes by almost 70%, as the truckers are demanding Abdul Hamid Gurwara

The strike was announced on Thursday, when negotiations with the government in Kabul failed, the truckers said.

On Sunday, their representatives met with the commercial attache at the Afghan consulate in Peshawar and were told that their demands had been forwarded to the authorities in Kabul, Sawab Khan, a spokesman for the truckers' union, told the BBC.

But members of the Afghanistan-Pakistan Chamber of Commerce (APCC) in Peshawar said they did not expect an early resolution of the crisis.

"The truckers' complaints are genuine, but the Kabul government is not expected to bring down the taxes by almost 70%, as the truckers are demanding," said Abdul Hamid Gurwara, a member of the APCC.

More than 350 trucks carry an average of 7,000 tonnes of goods over the Khyber Pass to Kabul every day, the truckers and traders say.

This includes between 40 and 50 tankers taking oil for the Western coalition forces in Afghanistan, traders say.

Most of these goods are sent forward from Peshawar, which is fed by Pakistan Railways and trucks from the army-owned National Logistics Cell (NLC).

A small portion of the goods are taken by trucks directly from Karachi to Kabul, though they, too, pass through Peshawar.

'Too much'

Sawab Khan said every truck pays about 400,000 Pakistani rupees (more than $6,500) annually in taxes and bribes.

"This is too much for our transporters, who are mostly poor and hard-pressed to make both ends meet," he said.

Truckers who refuse to pay bribes are often made to park along the road and wait, sometimes for more than 24 hours, before they are allowed to move on, he said.

Some truckers also complain of extortion on the Pakistani side of the border.

Sawab Khan said that truckers carrying supplies into Afghanistan from Iran via Herat and from Central Asia via Hairatan were also on strike.

Supplies to the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, and also partly to Herat, pass through Quetta and across the Chaman border in Pakistan's Balochistan province. The truckers operating on this route say they confront fewer problems and are not planning to go on strike.