Overseas Pakistanis Conference: Law to be tabled soon on expats’ complaints

Expatriates are our greatest ambassadors, Shahbaz says.

LAHORE:

The Punjab Overseas Pakistanis Commission (POPC) will be the most empowered platform for overseas Pakistanis to discuss their issues and register complaints that fall in the provincial government’s domain, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif said at the inauguration ceremony of the First Overseas Pakistanis Convention Punjab on Monday.

As many as 275 delegates from 30 countries are participating in the convention. The delegates were given a briefing on the POPC draft. They also posited suggestions on how the Punjab government could improve its governance.

The draft for the proposed POPC was prepared by a committee headed by Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Rana Sanaullah Khan. He apprised the delegates about the salient features of the POPC and said that the government would enforce it through an ordinance after inputs from the conference were incorporated in it. The government will issue the POPC ordinance within days, Sanaullah said.

Explaining the structure of the proposed POPC, he said, a commissioner will be appointed from among expatriates residing in UK, USA and Gulf countries. Heads of departments relating to expatriates will also be POPC members, he said. Sanaullah said the additional inspector general of police, a member of the Board of Revenue and the housing secretary will be part of the commission. Prominent expatriates will also be included in the commission, he said.

A well furnished office will be established in Lahore, he said. Overseas Pakistanis will be asked to give their suggestions every three to six months.

Additional Chief Secretary Amir Sohail said the POPC has begun recruiting members. He said the commission would address complaints, most of them pertaining to Revenue and Police Departments. He said if the departments do not address their complaints, the commission could refer complaints to the provincial ombudsperson.

He said a focal person nominated by each department would be the liaison officer between the department and the commission.

At the district level, Sohail said, there would be Overseas Pakistanis District Vigilance Committees presided over by district coordination officers. He said district police officers and additional collectors would be their members. He said district committees would monitor complaints and send progress reports to the commissioner.

IT University Vice Chancellor Dr Umer Saif said the POPC would be completely automated. He said there would be three ways to lodge complaints - a 24-hour helpline, an SMS or a mail to the website. He said every complainant would get a tracking ID and could check its status online on the POPC website.

He said there would also be a smart phone application over which expatriates could lodge their complaints.

“Overseas Pakistanis are our best ambassadors,” the chief minister said. He said he had fulfilled one of his election promises.

Sharif said he had tried to address the expatriates’ problems through administrative orders in 2008, but that hadn’t worked.

Following computerisation of land records, all patwaris and tehsildars will be surplus.  He would serve them tea and cakes himself, the chief minister quipped.

Sharif suggested an amendment to the POPC, saying they should be headed by politicians at the district level, “instead of bureaucrats who shove everything under red tape”.

Several delegates, most of them overseas members of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, told The Express Tribune that they had received directions to attend the conference from their party leadership back home.

Shaheen Butt, a PML-N member from New York, said that around 8 million Pakistanis were living abroad. He said they sent up to $13 billion as remittances to the country each year. He said if the POPC did good work, the remittances might even double.

Barrister Amjad Malik from UK said the POPC could improve Pakistan’s perception, image and investment abroad. They thanked the chief minister for establishing the POPC. Governor Chaudhry Sarwar also presented a vote of thanks.

The conference will end on Tuesday (today).

Published in The Express Tribune, April 29^th, 2014.