BE2C2 Report – As many as 650 professional and qualified Pakistani expatriates have submitted their Curriculum Vitaes (CVs) albeit Resumes to the ‘Naya Pakistan Calling’ (NPC) online web portal, according to APP.
These exuberant patriotic overseas Pakistanis have expressed their readiness to share their skills and expertise to help build the country.’s governance.
The NPC was a web portal set up by the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development in the first 100-days of the new government aimed at reintegrating Pakistani Diaspora in national mainstream.
Overseas Pakistanis who are par excellence and can be part of the Public Sector Institutions/Advisory Bodies, etc. at Federal and Provincial level are being invited to join and contribute to the making of NAYA PAKISTAN, says the NPC website.
According to APP report, the CVs of all aspirants had been forwarded to the ministries and the departments concerned which were said to being processed at this stage.
The contenders would be given an opportunity to share their professional skills in their relevant fields, it said.
It’s been 200+ days now, and the clock’s ticking.
Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development, Sayed Zulfikar Abbas Bukhari said this platform was established on the instruction of Premier Khan who “is keen to utilize the valuable asset [expats] of the country”.
“The idea was based on brain gain, and earlier, the previous regimes did not pay heed to use this resourceful segment of the country, which resulted into brain drain,” he added.
The prime minister’s aide also said the government is providing a gateway to the expatriates to involve them in policy and decision-making process of the country, for which they would be placed as members of important departments’ and entities’ boards.
A quick out-reach by us among the few expats we know are in the country on these grounds, however, said they have run into some problems of different types- they did not clarify.
“The program is not really translating into an “all-embracing” activity top to bottom”, they said.
The trickle-down effect has hit snags at different levels- from personal to institutional”, they added.
So while the NPC intention may be a good move, it could end up becoming a non-starter on the whole, they said, “given existing conditions and organizational approaches being followed”, they explained.
Solution? All of them questioned, grinned and threw their hands up! “Rather than paperwork reduction, we still follow the reverse, and assume that all are guilty unless proven innocent, rather than the opposite. So institutional changes can’t happen at the speed and places Naya Pakistan wants to go- taking us along”, they complained.
As optimists, we still think NPC should run its course, despite the agony. Ecstasy is subtle.
(BE2C2 Report is a data journalism initiative of Irshad Salim Associates, a New Jersey, USA, based consulting firm in association with BE2C2 in Pakistan)
