The government of Punjab is planning to export the entire 100,000 additional skilled and unskilled workers to Qatar, completely ignoring other three provinces in a bid to strengthen its vote bank in the next general election. The Emir of Qatar had announced to recruit 100,000 additional workers from Pakistan during Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's visit to Qatar in February last year, and the ruling government is bent upon making it controversial by making the labour export Punjab-specific.
Federal Minister for Overseas Pakistanis & Human Resource Development (OP&HRD), Pir Syed Sadaruddin Shah Rashidi told the National Standing Committee on Overseas Pakistani and Human Resources Development on Thursday that the government of Punjab may export the entire 100,000 additional skilled and unskilled workers to Qatar as Chief Minister Punjab Shahbaz Sharif was personally overseeing the entire process.
When MNA Suraiya Jatoi asked the minister if there was no share of other provinces in export of 100,000 labourers to Qatar, he said the government was trying to increase the export of labour to Qatar up to 200,000 to share its benefit with other provinces too.
Joint Secretary Emigration and OP&HRD Manzoor Ahmad Kayani, while briefing the committee about his visit to Qatar along with Director General Bureau of Emigration and Overseas Employment (BE&OE), said the delegation visited Qatar on August 31 to September 1, 2016 and took part in the joint committee meeting formed under Article-XVI of agreement concerning the organisation of Pakistani Manpower Employment in Qatar signed on March 28, 1987.
He said that during the visit, both sides convened a joint committee meeting on August 31, 2016 and discussed modalities to implement the announcement of the Emir of Qatar to recruit an additional 100,000 skilled and unskilled Pakistani workers. Kayani further said Pakistani delegation met with Dr Issa Bin Saad Al-Jafali Al Nuaimi, Qatari Minister for Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs.
The minister recalled the visit of the Prime Minister to Doha, Qatar, where the Emir of Qatar announced additional 100,000 visas for employment of Pakistani manpower in the state of Qatar. He said that during the meeting Qatari side discussed some fundamental points including: a) studying the mechanism of expediting the recruitment process as well as discussing and resolving the obstacles; b) exchanging the list of the accredited recruitment offices and agencies in the both the countries; c) a briefing by the concerned departments; d) and a brief orientation of the E-link programme to facilitate the employers in the Qatar to check the list of job seekers in Pakistan. The Pakistani side agreed to all points proposed by the Qatari side.
He said E-link was a programme to maintain data of the job seekers. Qatari side requested Pakistan to regulate the database of the Pakistani job seekers and consider implementing E-link at the earliest by providing Pakistani links of the job seekers to Ministry of Administrative Development, Labour and Social Affairs, Qatar.
The Joint Secretary said Qatari side requested Pakistan to provide a list of 100 short-listed overseas employment promoters (OEPs) to ensure the smooth process of emigration from Pakistan to Qatar. "Pakistani side agreed to provide the requisite list urgently in consultation with all the relevant stakeholders," he added.
He said that upon receipt of the formal minutes of the joint committee meeting from the Ministry of Administrative Development Labour and Social Affairs of Qatar, Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resources Development might convene a meeting of all stakeholders including Bureau of Emigration and Overseas Employment, Pakistan Overseas Employment Promoters Association (POEPA), Overseas Employment Cooperation (OEC), National Vocational and Technical Training Commission (NAVTTC), provincial TEVTAS, Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication to assign responsibility for preparing an E-link for Pakistani job seekers' database for onward communication to the concerned Qatari ministry.
Kayani said the ministry had prepared the list of 100 overseas employment promoters and submitted it to the Prime Minister Secretariat. Following directives of the Prime Minister, the list of 100 promoters was forwarded to Qatar. About opportunities for the overseas employment in Turkey, the officials said that as per data of OEC and BE&OE, Turkey was not a labour receiving country. Only 417 persons went to Turkey for employment from 1971 to 2016.
He informed the meeting that Korea imported manpower from 15 countries including Pakistan and fixed quota for each country annually. A total of 6,149 people had gone to Korea for employment since 2008, he said. The official said that under the Employment Permit System (ESP) of Korea, the workers were first required to pass a Korean language test. MNA Rana Muhammad Afzal Khan said that according to his information, Afghanistan had exported more labour to Korea as compared to Pakistan. On this, an official said the main reason of export of larger number of people to Korea from Afghanistan was that they accepted the minimum wage of all kinds which people from Pakistan did not accept.