Women entrepreneurs in Barisal on Tuesday formed a human chain and burnt copies of their trade licences in protest at the ongoing political crisis and blockade.
If this situation continued, they would not be able to pay workers’ wages, bank loan instalments and taxes of any type, they cautioned in the programme.
The District Women Business Forum organised the programme in front of Ashwini Kumar Hall in the city.
Banolata Murshida, president of the forum, presided over the programme addressed among others by Rebeka Sultana, secretary, Nigar Sultana Hanufa, adviser Rina Sultana, Khaleda Huq, Hasina Begum Nila, Minu Nasir, entrepreneurs and forum members.
The speakers said it was not fair and acceptable that political parties would do violence to meet their demands and mass people including businessmen, professionals would fall victim to such violence.
‘We have been forced to announce agitation programmes as our businesses are on the verge of collapse because of the current political crisis. The government failed to ensure the security of our business and uninterrupted business-friendly environment,’ said a speaker in the programme.
The women entrepreneurs said miscreants had burnt or damaged there business enterprises, workers were starving due to non-payment of salaries and the owners were counting losses caused by limited transactions and soaring interests against their loans.
The participants in the programme said women and small scale entrepreneurs for the last two months were failing to pay wages to their workers, instalments to banks and payment for back-to-back letters of credit and insurance premiums.
So they urged political parties to keep business sectors outside political programmes and said frequent blockades, shutdowns, vandalism and arson attacks had almost broken the supply chain, flow of transaction and consumers.
They asked political parties why they would fall victim to their politics of confrontation and demanded an immediate end to the political crisis, a business-friendly environment and punishment of the people responsible for torching, damaging their business enterprises.
If the business of women entrepreneurs collapses because of the political crisis, the livelihood of thousands of people, directly and indirectly involved in the sector, will be threatened and political parties will need to shoulder the responsibility, they cautioned.
They also threatened to take to the streets along with their workers and employees if major political parties failed to reach a consensus within a short period.
-With New Age input
