If you ask Jalil, who worked as a munshi with a major NATO supply contractor, what will happen to contractors and transporters now that the NATO forces have left Afghanistan, he will tell you the contractors are so rich that they don’t care because they have set up several businesses. It is the transporters who have started hemorrhaging cash since the withdrawal weeks ago.
The swarm of small transporters who started out with one or two vehicles grew fleets that swelled to 12 trucks under each owner. More vehicles meant more money as long as they had shipments to carry. Now, they don’t know what to do with all these trucks.
Some of them tried to sell the vehicles, which could no longer be put to use due to low demand, but there are no buyers.
No one is ready to buy an oil tanker at even half the price, Jalil told SAMAA Money.
“When the NATO supply was at its peak, transporters were rolling in money so much so that from Karachi they would call home in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to inform they would have dinner that night with their kith and kin,” Jalil explained. “They would then get fish fried here and take a plane to KP and enjoy the same fish there that same night with family and friends. The next day, they would take another plane back.”
Some transporters have removed from their tanker-trucks the bulk liquid cylinders that once carried fuel for NATO forces as they attempt to repurpose the vehicles, which they now plan to use as dumpster trucks for coal supplies.
The NATO suppliers – transporters not the contractors who played the middleman – did not even manage to save much over the 20-year war because the running cost of these fleets was so high. According to Jalil, the worst off are those who are still paying instalments. In fact, their vehicles are being seized as they can’t meet payments.
Since affluence is sometimes associated with plentiful food, Jalil continues to use the same food example. “At deras they would cook an entire goat or sheep,” he said. “With the departure of NATO forces, all that fun is gone.”
How big was the NATO business for Pakistani truckers?
When NATO forces landed in Afghanistan after 9/11, they were supplied fuel, vehicles and other goods overland from Pakistan after they were shipped to Karachi’s port.
The number of vehicles forming the supply chain for the NATO forces began to go up. In 2007, it totalled over 4,500. Thousands of men, drivers, conductors, labour got jobs.
The ultimate beneficiaries or top earners in this supply chair, however, were the contractors, and not the transporters. Some of the big names are Alhaj Enterprise, Spin Zar Enterprise, Mengal Enterprise, Bilal Enterprise, Triple L and D2D. Some of them owned trucks that they rented out to transporters. They would sell trucks to transporters on instalments. Whenever there was a spike in militant attacks on the NATO supply line, they would charge transporters more rent. And so, their wealth grew over the two decades.
NATO supply lines also shelled out money to policemen who extracted thousands of rupees from each passing truck. Former NATO supply drivers claim that they used to pay Rs10,000 in Attock and another Rs10,000 in Peshawar’s Taru Jabba. The oil tankers were required to make a stopover at Peshawar’s Ring Road before advancing to the border in convoys because individual vehicles were not allowed to travel for fear of attacks. A fee of Rs30,000 was charged for 24 hours, and every tanker had to make a three-day stopover.
Down south, vehicles leaving for the Chaman border in Balochistan passed through Jacobabad. The first convoy would be formed at Sibi, Balochistan and Rs5,000 had to be paid there. The second convoy was formed at Kalpur and the third was formed at Quetta. Along this route running through Balochistan, locals would also get paid for security services.
On the other side of the border, in Afghanistan, the convoys were protected by the Afghan security forces, who too were in on the take.
There was always the risk of being killed while supplying NATO forces, but drivers and conductors never gave up because the supply line offered higher income than any local routes. In 2001, a driver’s salary was Rs15,000 and conductor’s Rs5,000. After the NATO supplies began, the salary of a driver went up to Rs20,000 and that of the conductor to Rs10,000.
Bodily harm: Drivers, conductors maimed, injured for life
Dozens of men transporting NATO supplies have lost their lives and many are living with disabilities from doing this work.
Dil Nawaz, who worked as a driver for 20 years to prop the NATO supply line, says he has driven oil tankers and container-laden trailers into Afghanistan through both the Torkham border crossing and the Chaman border and has come under attack several times. Nawaz says while he escaped unhurt almost every time, at least ten people from his Nakikhel tribe lost their lives to attacks. Nawaz knows dozens of others – drivers and conductors – who were wounded or left with disabled.
Young driver Noushad’s story is painful to recall. Noushad lost his eyes when militants fired at the windscreen of his truck and shrapnel pierced his face. “He had been married just a year before the attack,” said Nawaz. “Now, he is living a blind man’s life for the past ten years.”
Another driver Tahir lost one of his hands to a militant attack which ultimately rendered him jobless.
Nadeemullah, a 22-year-old driver, was burnt alive when militants torched his truck near Spin Boldak in Afghanistan. He had stopped to spend the night on the roadside and gone to sleep in the driver’s cabin.
The contractors have never paid any compensation to the families of the drivers or conductors, said drivers Rahimullah and Farooq Azam. The contractors usually sent a few thousand rupees and food for the mourners at best, they said.
It’s a pity that the vehicles themselves were protected by insurance but not the people who were driving them.
from SAMAA https://ift.tt/2Yvrlly
No comments:
Post a Comment