Steps afoot to further improve Pak missions’ services delivery in Gulf countries: Sherry Rehman
Islamabad: Federal Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman on Tuesday informed the Senate that the government had taken multiple steps to improve consular and welfare services delivery to the expatriates by Pakistan Missions in Gulf countries.
On a query during question hour, she said a dedicated approach had been adopted to bring procedural improvements, organizational, restructuring and improvement in the service delivery by Pakistan Missions.
She said that all issues were followed up with local governments which yielded positive results for the Pakistani community living abroad.
She further said Pakistan mission in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had an automated Machine-Readable Passport section where all passport related services were provided.
On weekends, the mission regularly sent consular teams to the community and the missions continued to take up the case of Haroob/Expired Iqama with the Saudi authorities for their earliest proceedings, she said.
She said as regards non-payment of salaries by the sponsoring Kafeels/companies, the same were taken up with the local authorities Khuli-Kachehri, zoom meetings.
She said that facebook live, 24/7 facilitation center, modern Queue Management System and android application were other initiatives that have been launched to help facilitate community members.
The Minister said in the UAE, the mission took up the matter with the host government as well as the concerned companies to resolve the problems of the Pakistani community.
In Bahrain, Mission held, regular meetings with the Ministry of labour and Social Development for issues such as nonpayment of salaries by the employer.
Other initiatives launched by the Pakistan Mission included inclusion of mandatory health and accidental coverage of Pakistani labour in the employment contract, creation of awareness amongst the Pakistani labour Market Regulatory Authority and local police for recovery of dues and passports from the employer.
She said in Kuwait there was a mechanism for change/renewal of sponsorship/Iqama through an online digital system. The mission provided relevant information and where required legal assistance to Pakistani workers, she added.
She said the embassy provided efficient passport renewal services to community members and effective legal assistance was provided to those Pakistani workers who reported instances of non-payment of salaries.
In order to facilitate Pakistani workers in their immigration procedures, the government of Qatar had established Qatar visa centers in Pakistan, she added.
On arrival of Pakistani workers, the Qatar government had made a digitalization system for conversion of their visas into Qatar ID/Iqamas by their sponsors/employers.
