Pakistan plans to share manpower’s data with Gulf countries online

ISLAMABAD: The Senate's Standing Committee on Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development (OP&HRD) was informed on Thursday that efforts were underway to share manpower data with the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia by linking online portals.

Director General (DG) of Bureau of Emigration and Overseas Employment Kashif Noor apprised the committee, chaired by Shaheen Khalid Butt, about the country’s plan of linking its portals with the Gulf states.

Kashif Noor said Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Overseas Pakistanis Sayed Zulfikar Bukhari had made a formal request to the representatives of the three countries at the 108th session of the International Labour Conference (ILC) recently held in Geneva.

He said the ministry had forwarded written requests to the departments concerned of the Middle Eastern countries for the purpose and was awaiting their response.

Kashif said Pakistan had recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the UAE for protection of Pakistani workforce’ rights and a link between the portals of both countries would be set up after getting a green signal from the UAE authorities.

The accords of same nature were being drafted and would be signed with Saudi Arabia and Qatar soon to swap the workers’ data and protect their rights, he added.

After linkage of the online portals with those countries, he hoped, the issues of Pakistani manpower, emerged before and after their hiring by the foreign employers, would be resolved swiftly.

The committee also discussed the case of Pakistani prisoner Abdul Rehman, who was sentenced to death by the High Court of Malaysia for committing a murder of his Malaysian wife, referred by the Senate chairman on April 16, 2019.

Secretary of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development Division Pervaiz Junejo apprised the meeting that Abdul Rehman had exhausted all of his appeals against the conviction. His release could only be ensured through a royal pardon as chances of the review petition's admissibility by the Federal court were minimal.

When Abdul Hameed, father of Abdul Rehman, insisted to file a review petition in the Malaysian High Court, the secretary said the government was ready to file the plea if recommended by the committee.

He added that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) only provided legal counsel access to those Pakistani prisoners who were incarcerated abroad in petty crimes.

Abdul Rehman’s father was of the view that the case of his son was not pleaded effectively by the lawyers in Malaysia, adding that his son’s legal counsel, who fought the prisoner’s case previously, had not returned the case related documents.

Pervaiz informed the committee that the former lawyer of Abdul Rehman was untraceable.

He said around 10,000 ringgits were required to hire a lawyer to get the documents from the relevant departments and another 15,000 ringgits were needed to hire a counsel for the trial.

Senator Shehzad Waseem said the committee should not recommend providing legal assistance to the prisoner on the state’s expense as it would become a precedent for other cases as well.

He said the committee should take up the major problems of overseas Pakistanis rather than individual cases.

Shehzad said the government should provide possible assistance to the family of prisoner in getting the royal pardon.

Senator Nighat Mirza also backed the stance of Shehzad Waseem and suggested to dispose of the case in order to save the precious time of committee.

Shaheen Khalid Butt asked Abdul Hameed that whether the overseas ministry and Foreign Office had extended all out support to him for making sure his contact with Abdul Rehman.

Abdul Hameed said Pakistani authorities were cooperating with him very well and told the chairman that he had spoken to his son twice due to the efforts of Foreign Office.

The committee unanimously agreed to dispose of the public petition regarding Abdul Rehman and directed the Foreign Office to communicate with the Pakistani community in Malaysia to raise funds for filing a review petition of Abdul Rehman.

The recent scandal of Chinese men marrying Pakistan women also echoed in the meeting.

The committee members were of the opinion that the matter should be handled gingerly as it could involve foreign hands which wanted to weak Pak-China strong bond.

They asked the committee chairman to call the senior officials of the interior ministry and Federal Investigation Agency to know the actual status of the case.

The committee was attended by senators Saussi Palijo, Maulvi Faiz Ahmed and Mirza Muhammad Afridi, and high officials of overseas ministry and Overseas Pakistanis Foundation (OPF).