ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Overseas Pakistanis Sayed Zulfikar Abbas Bukhari told Arab News on Saturday that the government had urged the authorities in Qatar to ensure full payment of dues to Pakistani workers who had been expelled from different companies owing to the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
“I spoke to Qatar’s Minister of Administrative Development, Labor and Social Affairs Yousef bin Mohamed Al-Othman Fakhroo on Friday and urged him to bound all Qatari companies to pay full salaries of the laid-off Pakistani workers,” he said.
Bukhari added that his ministry was trying to verify the exact number of Pakistanis who had lost their jobs in the Arab state after the COVID-19 outbreak.
“We are verifying the figures, but so far it seems that around 800 to 1,000 laborers have lost their jobs and want to come back to Pakistan. I have also asked that the employers of these laborers should give their airfare,” he informed.
The prime minister’s adviser said that he had urged the Qatari minister not to sack more Pakistani workers and try to retain them during this difficult period.
“I have asked them to provide maximum relief to nearly 4,000 stranded Pakistanis in Qatar. We want the Qatar Airways to help us with the repatriation of these individuals and other stranded Pakistanis in countries like the United States,” Bukhari continued.
He said that the Qatari government had positively responded on all these issues and things would be finalized in the beginning of the next week.
“The Qatari minister assured that steps would be taken to provide relief to Pakistani expatriates,” he said.
Earlier, Bukhari contacted the United Arab Emirates minister for human resources and discussed the issues of stranded Pakistanis.
In a major development, the UAE announced extension in Pakistani expatriates’s visas and its minister also assured that full salaries would be given to those Pakistanis who had recently lost their jobs.
