The National Assembly Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs Wednesday expressed displeasure over the absence of Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Foreign Secretary Sohail Mahmood from the meeting, while members of the opposition parties walked out in protest.
The meeting of the committee was chaired by Ehsanullah Tiwana. Former foreign minister and PPP's representative in the committee Hina Rabbani Khar pointed out that neither the foreign minister nor foreign secretary is present in the meeting, describing it against the prestige of the parliamentary panel.
"The officials of the Foreign Office are here but they can only respond to the specific questions. This is not a fair dealing of the parliamentary committee. We must not be part of the degrading," Khar said before she left the committee in protest.
Khar was followed by a PML-N member of the committee Zahra Wadood Fatemi who also walked out against the absence of the foreign minister and foreign secretary from the meeting.
Interestingly, PTI member of the committee Zain Hussain Qureshi, who is son of Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, supported Hina Rabbani Khar's stance, saying that either the foreign minister or the foreign secretary should have shown up to the committee to answer the queries of the members.
In his observations, committee chairman Tiwana said that it is very non-professional approach on the part of the Foreign Office and instructed the officials to convey the concerns and displeasure of the committee to senior officers of the Foreign Office.
Director General National Assembly and Senate Affairs (NASA), Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Shakeel Asgher told the committee that foreign minister is not in the city and foreign secretary was scheduled to attend a meeting. The Ministry of Religious Affairs called the foreign secretary for an important meeting due to which he was not able to attend the meeting, he added.
Earlier, the committee was given a briefing by officials from Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on the agenda item about non-professional and non-cooperative attitude of the FIA officials at the airports.
Director Immigration FIA, Nasir Satti told the committee that the FIA has already established a helpline and one window operation for the facilitation of the citizens, adding that the citizens can register their complaints at the airport or website of the FIA.
He said that the agency had received 184 complaints against its immigration officers in 2018. He said that there is zero tolerance in the FIA for its officials' misbehaviour with the passengers.
The chairman of the committee pointed out that labour class abroad, who are contributing in the country's economy through sending remittances, are subjected to misbehaviour while the VVIPs are given the due protocol.
Other members also pointed out that the FIA officials at the airports are misbehaving with the passengers, especially the labour class.
The committee expressed displeasure over the non-professional and non-cooperative attitude of FIA officials at airports and stressed upon the need to develop a proper mechanism to monitor their activities at airports so they could not misbehave with the passengers, especially labour class while coming back to Pakistan.
The committee further directed the FIA to strengthen its complaint cells at the airports for timely assistance to the complainants.
The committee also directed the Immigration and Passport Office to simplify the procedure for obtaining and renewing passports for Overseas Pakistanis and establish online system to facilitate them. The committee also directed that Immigration and Passport offices should be established at prime locations abroad to make them easily approachable for Pakistanis living abroad.
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