Pakistan Embassy in Washington had kept several of its contractual employees without salaries due to lack of funds, according to reports. At least five locally hired contractual employees were left without the payment of their monthly wages since August 2021. One of the distressed employees who had been working in the Embassy for ten years resigned in September after facing delays and non-payment.
As per reports, the financially hit contractual workers of the Pakistan Embassy worked in the Consular section dealing with the services of visa, passport, notarization, etc. These contractual workers of the Embassy were paid salaries in the range of 2,000 to 2,500 dollars per month, which was paid out of Pakistan Community Welfare (PCW) fund.
Reportedly, the PCW collapsed because of the COVID crisis in Pakistan as the funds of the PCW were used for buying ventilators and medical equipment during the pandemic. ‘Sources’ claim that the Embassy was forced to borrow money in order to mitigate the situation. Another reason given by sources for the lack of funds and the non-payment of salaries was that the Pakistan government has witnessed a digital transformation and that the visa services were being handled with the help of NADRA (National Database and Registration Authority).
Notably, the unpaid workers of the Pakistan Embassy had written to the Pakistani ambassador in the month of October who in turn requested the Pakistan Foreign Ministry to solve the problem. Reports claim that the Pakistani Ambassador had eventually secured the funds last week.
Pakistan Embassy spokesperson said, “while we always endeavour to disburse salaries to our staff on time, there are instances when due to longer than usual time in the processing of remittances from Pakistan and certain budgetary constraints, results in delay in disbursement of salaries to the staff.”
Non-Payment of Salaries in Serbia by Pakistan Embassy
The Pakistan Embassy in Belgrade, Serbia had earlier taken to Twitter and expressed its disappointment with the Pakistan government for the non-payment of its dues for the last three months. The embassy had also shared a song by Artist Saad Alavi to prove its point. The tweet said, “With inflation breaking all previous records, how long do you expect @ImranKhanPTI that we goverment official will remain silent & keep working for you without been paid for past 3 months & our children been forced out of school due to non payment of fees Is this #NayaPakistan?”
However, later the tweets were deleted, and the foreign ministry of Pakistan had claimed that the account was hacked and the messages were not posted by any embassy employee.
