Reports indicate that the Federal Ombudsman, M. Salman Faruqui, has decided to employ Skype to listen to the complaints of the expatriate community on a fortnightly basis.
New System For Hearing Complaints
The decision to use Skype was decided during a meeting chaired by Senior Adviser and Grievance Commissioner for Overseas Pakistanis, Hafiz Ahsaan Ahmed Khokhar recently.
He will be hearing the complaints from Pakistanis living abroad about individual and systematic issues of their community and complaints related to federal government ministries, agencies, departments and organisations.
Other attendees in the meeting included representatives of relevant ministries, Overseas Pakistanis Foundation (OPF) and the Bureau of Emigration and Overseas Employment.
Mr. Hafiz Khokhar said that directives have been issued to the OPF and the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis to make arrangements about hearing complaints at the Federal Ombudsman Secretariat through Skype. The complaints via Skype will be heard for countries where community welfare attaches are dispatched to resolve the problems in the “minimum time possible”.
Voting Rights for Overseas Pakistanis
Earlier, efforts to include Pakistanis living abroad in the elections and giving them the right to vote were also discussed by the government.
NADRA was given orders to verify and register overseas Pakistanis if they want to use their right to vote. Authorities from NADRA said that they will be able to register 140,000 people in the duration of a year. They also said that this number could increase if NADRA was provided with more resources, and given enough manpower to do a better job.
Read More: Overseas Pakistanis Can Get Registered for votes
Using Skype for contacting and resolving expat’s complaints is a cost and time effective measure and is bound to bring improvements to the process. In the 21st century, keeping the lines open for expat populations for resolving their issues is sorely needed. It is hoped that this initiative helps expatriate Pakistanis the world over, saving them unnecessary hassles, time and money in resolving some common issues faced by them.
More and more on-line facilitation still require for overseas Pakistanis, e.g. Fund Transfer still so expensive to grant into Pakistani Bank Accounts.