March, 19 2005	Saturday	08 Safar 1426

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ISLAMABAD, March 18: National Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain on Friday asked Foreign Minister Khursheed Mahmood Kasuri to enhance staff at the missions in countries where there was a greater concentration of expatriates. “In certain countries Pakistanis face difficulties in getting new passports and renewal of the old ones due to shortage of staff at the missions. People have to wait for long, as Pakistan Origin Cards are also not provided to the community in time,” the speaker said. He said special attention must be paid to the missions in the countries where a large number of Pakistanis were residing. In this regard he cited Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom and other countries. This observation came from the speaker during the question hour when the foreign minister was replying to a question about unavailability of passports at the Pakistan’s mission in Jeddah. Kasuri told the House that missions in certain countries lacked essential staff and sought the support of the speaker to direct the finance ministry to allocate funds for deputation of more staff there.

“In 2000, a cut was imposed on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that led to reduction of staff at the missions,” he said. “If, you sir, advise the finance ministry to allocate more funds for the ministry, we will be able to overcome this deficiency,” he added.

Kasuri told the house that passports were not available at Pakistan’s Consulate in Jeddah from July 1 to August 10, 2004 and the situation arose due to non-supply of passports from the Directorate General of Immigration and Passport.

At that time, the minister said, there was an overall shortage of passports, not only in Jeddah but also in Riyadh and other missions in the Gulf region.

He said, the foreign ministry and the consulate general in Jeddah had sent several communications to the interior ministry and the mission at Riyadh was compelled to start extending the validity of the existing passports for limited periods to enable them to fulfil the Saudi codal requirements.

The minister said it was being ensured that sufficient number of passports were made available at missions abroad, particularly in Saudi Arabia and Gulf region, as 1,500 passports were issued every week by the missions in these countries. —APP