Pakistan, UAE agree to finalize MoU for safe repatriation of expats

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and United Arab Emirates (UAE) have agreed to finalize the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding at the earliest to ensure legal and risk-free migration of Pakistani manpower to the UAE. 

The agreement to this effect reached during a meeting between Special Assistan to Prime Minister on Overseas Pakistanis Zulfikar Bukhari and Minister of Human Resources & Emiritisation the other day. 

The safety of Pakistani workforce, which played a key role in development of UAE, is among the top pirorities of the incumbent government, Zulfikar Bukhari informed his counterpart. 

He thanked the UAE authorities for sharing the draft of MoU and proposed three changes in it. 

Bukhari emphasized an early finalization of the MoU and expressed his desire to ink it during his next visit in Feburary. 

The proposed changes in three Articles 3, 5 and 6 of the MoU will be beneficial for the Pakistani expats in transferring money and in getting their disputes resolved. 

Article 3 pertains to the employment contract, Article 5 will now be concerned with the legal transfer of remittance to the destination of choice of the worker and Article 6 will deal with the dispute resolution between the worker and his employer where quick settlement of disputes will be sought with the help of judicial authorities of UAE, if approved.

 To this, the UAE minister assured the SAPM that the MoU would be signed soon after fulfilling codal formalities. Zulfikar Bukhari said Pakistan had developed a digital mechanism at its protectorate offices which could be connected with UAE to ensure safe and legal migration of its outgoing manpower. 

He also asked the UAE Minister to unveil UAE’s future human resource demand so that his country could meet their requirment by generating required skilled manpower.

 The UAE minister said they had prepared such plan till 2071 and were ready to share it which is available in documented form. 

The SAPM who was on five day official visit to UAE also raised the issue of payment of labors’ salaries still due in certain cases. The UAE side responded that the UAE govt had adopted zero tolerance policy against non-payment of salary for which it had evolved an elaborated mechanism. 

Under the mechanism, the UAE minister said the worker was given three choices in case of dispute between emploer and employee. Firstly, the worker was asked to change his employer unless the issue was resolved and secondly, he was allowed to work with same employer besides pursing the case. 

Lastly, he was asked to go back to his respective country and give power of attorney to someone else who could plead his case here. It was also pointed out that workers sometimes did not comprehend the system due to low education or language issues. 

Both sides also agreed to establish a link with the embassy to deal such cases regularly. The SAPM said both countries enjoyed excellent relations and had a great history and underlined the need to work for a better future.