Siraj for right to vote for overseas Pakistanis

LAHORE

Jamaat-e-Islami ameer Sirajul Haq has said that after exports the second largest share in the budget has been the 18.4 billion dollars foreign exchange sent by overseas Pakistanis that plays the part of backbone in country’s economy but rulers have been completely oblivious towards the problems of those running the economy by sending their hard earned money to country.

Government must take immediate measures to implement the Supreme Court judgment on ensuring the right to vote for overseas Pakistanis so that they could exercise their right to vote in the 2018 elections, he said while addressing a press conference at Mansoora on Thursday along with the representatives of overseas Pakistanis from US, UK, Saudi Arabia and other parts of the world. JI naib ameer Hafiz Idris, director foreign affairs Abdul Ghaffar Aziz, information secretary Amirul Azim and others were also present. 

Siraj said that overseas Pakistanis were suffering at the hands of incompetent staff appointed in 144 embassies all over the world, who had been busy in minting money, helping their kins in getting jobs abroad and living a luxurious life at the expense of public money instead of doing anything to solve the problems of overseas Pakistanis, nor the overseas Pakistanis foundation was playing any role for which it was established, he added.

Enumerating the problems he said that service of getting passport and National Identity Card renewal was almost non-existent in Pakistani embassies and consulates.

The problems of Pakistanis under detention abroad was most serious as they get no legal or moral help from embassies and they continued to languish for long time. He said quality and affordable education for children of Pakistani community abroad was another big problem since Pakistani educational institutions were almost non-existent. He demanded quota for overseas Pakistanis’ children in country’s engineering and medical colleges.