Pakistan suggests amendment in MoU for risk-free migration of expats with UAE

ISLAMABAD, Jan 30 (APP):Pakistan has suggested amendment in a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to ensure legal and risk-free migration of Pakistani manpower with the United Arab Emirates, which is likely to be signed next month.
Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Overseas Pakistanis Syed Zulfikar Bukhari has proposed three minor changes in Articles 3, 5 and 6 of the MoU dealing with remittances sending procedure and mechanism to resolve labour disputes, an official source told APP Wednesday.
The SAPM has handed over the amended draft to UAE Minister of Human Resources & Emiratisation Nasser Juma Al Hameli during a meeting the other day in UAE.
The official said the amendments were aimed at easing the remittances’ sending process for the Pakistani labour and evolving a mechanism for early resolution of their disputes with employers by providing them legal assistance in this regard.
He said Zulfikar Bukhari also stressed for signing the MoU at the earliest to mitigate suffering of Pakistani diaspora working abroad to feed their families back home and serve the country.
The UAE authorities assured the SAPM that the MoU would be signed soon after going through the proposition made by the Pakistani side, the official said.
During the meeting, Zulfikar Bukhari informed the other side that Pakistan had developed a digital mechanism at its all protectorate offices which could be connected with UAE to ensure safe and legal migration of its outgoing manpower.
The sources said, the ministry could maintain and trace the record of its all outgoing workforce through installed biometric verification system at its all the centres.
Highlighting the SAPM’s endeavours for Pakistani expatriates during his recent visit to Dubai, they said, the minister also raised the issue of payment of labors’ salaries still due in certain cases.
To this, the UAE made a stance that their government had adopted zero tolerance policy against non-payment of salary for which it had evolved an elaborated mechanism.
Under the mechanism, the UAE minister said a worker is given three choices in case of dispute between employer and employee. First, the worker is asked to change his employer unless the issue was resolved and second, he is allowed to work with same employer besides pursing the case. Lastly, the worker is given an option to go back to his respective country and give power of attorney to someone else who could plead his case here.
It was also pointed out that workers sometimes did not comprehend the system due to low education or language issues.
Earlier, Zulfikar Bukhari who was on a five-day official visit to UAE, visited a number of labour camps to hear the problems of Pakistani workforce there and convince them to use legal means for sending their money back home.
On the occasion, he said overseas Pakistanis remitted about $20 billion, including $4.8 billion from the UAE, during the fiscal year 2017-18 through legal banking channels.
“We want to double these remittances to $40 billion annually in the coming years by introducing special incentives on legal remittances,” he added.
As Prime Minister Imran Khan directed, the overseas ministry would extend every possible facility to Pakistani Diaspora, he said, adding the ministry was working on a number of initiatives ranging from establishment of digital challenger bank to remittance card aimed at incentivizing those OPs who would use legal channels for transferring their money to Pakistan