Poepa to impose ban on sale, purchase of overseas work visa

While criticising Ministry of Manpower and Overseas Pakistanis for non-cooperation, Pakistan Overseas Employment Promoters Association (Poepa) announced to impose a ban on sale and purchase of overseas work visa across the country.
Addressing a press conference, Chaudhry Muhammad Afzal, Central Chairman Poepa, announced that Peopa would announce uniform visa fee and there would be a ban on extra charging by employment promoters. He said that free visa would be granted to those applicants who would go abroad for employment. "Annually around 700,000 applicants will get benefit from the new arrangements of Peopa," he added.
He urged the government to formulate policy to tap potential of manpower export to Middle East, saying Qatar was going to open some sectors and government should try to capture manpower market. He further said that Defence Minister of Saudi Arabia had committed to get 50 percent manpower from Pakistan. "We appeal to the Prime Minister to intervene for facilitation so that this huge potential could be tapped," he said.
Central Chairman further said that Philippine had implemented a policy of free visa and that policy would also be enforced in Pakistan, adding that promoters would also charge only service fee. He said they had evolved a mechanism of accountability and those promoters who charged additional expenditure, their membership would be cancelled.
He further said that Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) and Immigration Bureau were not co-operating with the promoters. However, he lauded the role of Saudi Embassy which had streamlined visa submission mechanism. Responding to question, he said Saudi Embassy had abolished the system of individual visa drop box and Peopa had been authorised to submit passports for visa process.
Responding to a question, he said there had been no raid during last eight years when individual drop box system was in place and Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) started raiding promoters over human smuggling charges when Peopa had been empowered to submit visa to Embassy," he said.
He further said that no single case of involvement of promoters in human smuggling had been reported. Saudi Embassy processed 2,000 visas per day in Islamabad and 500 to 600 were being processed in Karachi Consulate, he added.