President urges expats to aid country’s uplift

President Dr Arif Alvi on Wednesday urged overseas Pakistanis to contribute more to the uplift of the country by sharing their knowledge, expertise and intellect in their relevant fields.

The president said technology has enabled the expatriates to contribute to the country’s progress through online platforms without requiring any physical presence.

President Alvi was addressing a ceremony held to recognise the invaluable contributions of overseas Pakistanis.

Dr Alvi said Pakistan desperately needed refined and highly productive human resources that were fundamentally essential for the country’s progress and prosperity.

The ceremony was attended by the Welfare Society for Overseas Pakistanis’ Rights Chairman Dawood Ghaznavi along with several prominent overseas Pakistanis and others.

President Alvi called upon all stakeholders, government and private sector to take concrete and meaningful steps to create enabling conditions for the retention of productive human resources as the physical resources of the country remained unexploited due to a shortage of trained manpower in the past which adversely impacted the development and progress of the country.

He said that he had been making efforts to get voting rights for overseas Pakistanis which could easily be possible with the help of technology or I-voting.

The president said since the majority of the overseas Pakistanis could not opt for postal ballot due to laws of their host countries or could not physically travel to Pakistan for casting their votes, a credible, verifiable and technology-driven electronic voting system was the best possible solution.

He said that the world was making progress by leaps and bounds with the help of technology but unfortunately Pakistan was lagging in adopting technology.

He called upon the stakeholders to continue their deliberation upon adopting technology-based solutions to provide voting rights to overseas Pakistanis.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 3^rd, 2022.