Missions in 47 countries have been facing severe administrative problems including non-payment of salaries to staff for the past three years
Dr. Akhtar Gulfam Director News Dawn TV + Editor-in-chief Daily Dawn
London: Missions in 47 countries of the Immigration and Passport Department of Pakistan have been suffering from a severe financial crisis for the last three years due to which the staff are facing severe difficulties in many administrative matters including non-payment of salaries.
According to available official documents, Pakistan’s Immigration and Passport Department is handling the issuance, renewal, and other operations of machine-readable passports in 47 Pakistani missions around the world.
Over the past three years, these missions have been consistently underfunded. As a result of which the department’s financial liabilities increase and its performance is hampered. This problem is not only affecting the internal efficiency of the department, but the passport staff deployed in these missions are also facing non-payment of salaries.
In this regard, Passport and Immigration says that the funds received from the financial year 2021-22 to the financial year 2023-24 are very short compared to the required funds, as a result of which the Pakistani missions abroad are unable to fulfill their daily needs. have had difficulty supporting
According to officials, in the financial year 2021-22, the department requested an annual grant of Rs 1,277 million, but only Rs 779.956 million was provided, leading to a deficit of Rs 497.044 million in the first year. A budget of Rs 1546 million was requested in FY 2022-23, but a mere Rs 839.850 million was provided, resulting in a deficit of Rs 706.150 million.
In the financial year 2023-24, Rs 1762.636 million was requested, but only Rs 988 million was provided, leaving a further shortfall of Rs 774.636 million.
Not only this, but in view of the staffing and salary issues, the department had requested a technical supplementary grant of Rs.184.820 million in the financial year 2021-22 to meet the employee related expenses for the staff posted abroad. , but the request could not be approved and the dues were shifted to the next financial year 2022-23.
Similarly, in the financial year 2022-23, the department requested a technical supplementary grant of Rs 1007 million to meet the arrears in foreign missions. But this request was also rejected, as a result of which the financial obligations were shifted to the financial year 2023-24.
