ISLAMABAD, June 26: Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) Director-General Tariq Pervez has said the agency will be revamped to improve its efficiency with special focus on staff deputed at airports in the country.

“We are meeting Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on June 29, and will be taking up issues like salary increase and overall upgradation of the immigration services to bring them on a par with international standards,” he said.

The FIA director-general made these remarks during an award distribution ceremony held at FIA headquarters here on Monday. FIA officers of Islamabad airport immigration checkpost were awarded certificates and cash prizes on the basis of their performance.

The immigration staff are the first people who come across foreigners coming to the country, hence present face of the country, he said, adding that “besides their capacity building, they need 100 per cent increase in their salaries”.

Though human trafficking in the country has decreased considerably over the couple of years, it needs to be completely eradicated, Mr Pervez said.

“We are following zero-tolerance policy towards human smugglers,” he added.

According to official sources in FIA, due to the ongoing war on terror, and worldwide threat of terrorism, Pakistan has been asked to improve its immigration services to check movement of suspected terrorists.

Presently, they said, immigration staff in the country got one third of salaries that their contemporaries were getting in the neighbouring countries, which definitely affected their efficiency.

There is a continuous tug of war between human smugglers and immigration staff, as the former always remain in try to go through immigration procedures unharmed, “therefore, we need to keep on checking our deficiencies on regular basis,” the director-general said.

Congratulating the award winner immigration staff of the Islamabad airport checkpost, he urged them to keep on improving their performance.

According to the facts shared by FIA Immigration, Islamabad airport, Deputy Director Kaleem Imam, 35 immigration officers had detected 99 forge and fake travel documents and stopped 690 passengers on account of trying to travel on insufficient documents in the last seven months.

Similarly, 45 persons placed on the watch list were checked and subsequently nabbed. This performance of the Islamabad airport immigration officials has resulted in saving the national exchequer worth Rs50 million.

In case, a passenger with forged documents boards a flight and caught at the landing airport, the government has to pay the fine, he said.