By Adnan Rafique
ISLAMABAD: The Federal Ombudsman Ejaz Ahmad Qureshi has directed the agencies concerned to improve facilitation for the Overseas Pakistanis at the One Window Facilitation Desks (OWFD) of all eight International airports in Pakistan. He expressed these views while chairing a high level meeting to resolve the grievances of Overseas Pakistanis and to review the functioning of One Window Facilitation Desks (OWFD) at International Airports in Pakistan. The meeting was attended by the Special Secretary Foreign Affairs Mr. Khalid H. Memon, Acting Chairman NADRA Brig. Khalid Latif, D.G. Bureau of Immigration Dr. Tahir Noor, DG OPF, Director Immigration, FIA Masood Bangash, Director ASF Ehsanullah, Director CAA, Sadiq ur Rehman, AC Customs Islamabad Int. Airport, Dr. Shaista Director Central Health Services, GM (Coord) PIA, senior representatives of other relevant departments and senior officers of WMS.
He said that more than 09 million Overseas Pakistanis are making great contribution by helping their families back home and also taking part in the socio-economic uplft of the country by remitting around 30 billion dollars annually to the country.
He said that being a public servant we are duty bound to serve the Overseas Pakistanis with utmost zeal. He directed the Special Secretary Foreign Affairs to start Khuli Kacheries once a month in the Pakistan Missions abroad to resolve grievances of Overseas Pakistanis.
He also directed all the participants to appoint an officer of BS-20 as Focal Person in their respective department for liaison with the WMS. He took a serious note of non-functioning of OWFD at Quetta International Airport and directed the concerned authorities to ensure its functioning within a week.
The Director CAA assured that the OWFD would be revived in the shortest possible time. The Ombudsman further directed all the heads of departments to constitute monitoring team to randomly check the functioning of OWFDs.
Taking cognizance of delay in submission of monthly progress reports by the Pakistan missions, the Ombudsman directed that an Online Interface with the Foreign Office should be established through the CMIS system of WMS to avoid delays.
During briefing session, the Grievance Commissioner for Overseas Pakistanis informed that 54,000 complaints of Overseas Pakistanis were resolved in the year 2021 including 39604 complaints handled and disposed of at One Window Facilitation Desks.
He further said that 22,295 complaints of Overseas Pakistanis have been resolved in the first quarter of 2022 with the increase of 112% as compared to 10,473 in 2021.
He said that the number of complaints have increased due to robust awareness campaign launched to sensitize the Overseas Pakistanis about the functioning of the office of Wafaqi Mohtasib.
