Bilawal concedes loophole in visas for Afghans

ISLAMABAD: The government conceded in the Senate on Friday that a cipher assistant in the Pak Embassy in Sweden was involved in issuance of visas to Afghan nationals in violation of government guidelines and the matter was referred to the FIA for probe and action.

During the question hour, in a written reply to a question by Haji Hidayatullah, Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said this and added that the assistant, Sair Khan, was immediately recalled two months back from the mission in Stockholm.

“Unfortunately, he retired after his return and then there is no justification for an internal inquiry. But we want to create a precedent and are taking it seriously. The Afghan nationals’ visa is a very complex issue, as we give concessions to them on medical and other grounds, but when this facility/system is exploited, learning from this, we have given authority of visa issuance to only the head of missions,” said State Minister for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar in reply to a supplementary question. She pointed out that this facility was withdrawn for two months to fix loopholes and has been restored now. To another question as to how an assistant could issue visa, she said that in Sweden, there was arrangement of one plus two and under this, the authority was granted to the assistant as well. However, she dispelled the impression that the entire staff could have been involved in the irregularity. She said she would approach the FIA to get updated on the matter.

Replying in writing to another question by Mohsin Aziz, Bilawal Bhutto said that at present, there were 41 official vehicles as authorized by the Cabinet Division at the disposal of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to meet its operational requirements at the headquarters and camp offices in provinces. The vehicles, the minister noted, were being used by the MoFA’s general pool, camp offices and SECDIV Division and that no vehicle held in the ministry’s pool was attached to any officer for the security duty. No officer in the ministry, availing monetization, is using official vehicle; there are 83 officers who availed monetization. Sharing details of expenditure incurred on vehicles (fuel and maintenance) from April 2022 to February 2023, the minister said over Rs 30 million were spent on fuel and maintenance. Of this, Rs 23.8 million were incurred on fuel and another Rs 6.53 million on vehicles’ maintenance. Replying to supplementary questions by Senator Mohsin and Saifullah Abro, who regretted that in a poor country, such lavish spending was being made on fuel and maintenance, the minister of state informed the House that the audit was an ongoing process and that the staff used the facility very carefully.

However, she asked the members to share the related information of other departments for comparison to base their argument on overspending.