LAHORE: The Punjab government has asked all the administrative secretaries to follow the Prime Minister’s programme of attracting outstanding overseas Pakistanis to public sector jobs. A direction by the federal government and outline of the way to attract outstanding overseas Pakistanis have also been attached with the order.

The order says the prime minister’s vision – moving from brain drain to brain gain – harnessing the potential of the overseas Pakistanis for development of Naya Pakistan should be followed in letter and spirit.

The secretaries have been asked to convey the message and a letter by the federal government’s cabinet secretariat, establishment division, to all the members of their boards, authorities, commissions, heads of attached departments and autonomous and semi-autonomous bodies for further action.

Officials on Sunday said the federal government believed that the overseas Pakistanis had always shown keen interest in contributing to the betterment of Pakistan. Highly qualified overseas Pakistanis would be catalyst for advancement in fields of information technology, software development, education, scientific research, engineering and medical science if provided with proper platform to serve the country. The government departments should also attract the Pakistani diaspora to invest in the business opportunities and concierge services.

The officials explained that the government wanted the overseas Pakistanis, who had achieved excellence in their fields, to become a part of the public sector institutions/advisory bodies at the federal and provincial level, according to their expertise. However, they added that as per the government analysis, there were limited opportunities for overseas Pakistanis. They referred to lack of want, unattractive pay package, laws prohibiting preferential treatment, issues linked with dual nationality in the public service system, high cost of doing business and lengthy approval processes and inconsistencies in policies dealing with investments as major hurdles.

The officials said the government also wanted the administrative machinery to also learn from the experiences of ‘shining India’ plan under which a large number of overseas Indians returned home.

According to the officials, the federal government has already developed a portal at the Overseas Pakistanis Foundation (OPF) with the title, Naya Pakistan, introducing a sector-based data indicating 276 boards entities out of which 212 are under the federal and 64 provincial government domains. Till date 360 CVs have been received and scrutinised. Select CVs have been shared with the relevant government entities for consideration.

Published in Dawn, December 31st, 2018