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+--- Thread: FOREIGNER OVERSEAS NOT PAKISTANI OVERSEAS (/thread-foreigner-overseas-not-pakistani-overseas)
FOREIGNER OVERSEAS NOT PAKISTANI OVERSEAS - javed - 03-08-2007
During this week Conference the Overseas Investors were stressed by both Their Excellencies the President and the Prime Minister to invest in Pakistan. Perhaps for the reason being of a clerical mind from a clerical family educated from Municipality school, I never understand that our governments always insist foreign overseas to bring their money in Pakistan and do not so wish the Pakistani Overseas.
Senior Tariq Azim as the then Overseas Pakistanis Minister addressing the Pakistanis in middle east told the audience that perforce the government took loans from international lenders on high pay back interest and sometime on âhumiliatingâ terms. These were his exact words. I remember some years back a delegation headed by some senior from State Bank of Pakistan went Dubai in search of obtaining loana from some new money lending multinationals. If the government takes loan from the world bank or IMF say at 15% with tough conditions and âcompulsory dictationâ, I can not understand why it does not take same money from Pakistani Overseas In shape of normal remittances for their âsaving Accounts in Pakistanâ by offering just a 5% extra profit than the normal rate. International loans are to be repatriated back whereas from Overseas Pakistanis (OPs) these need not be. During last 15 years I have vigorously suggested but never even to get a normal letter of thanks that this extra 5% not be put a burden on the Government. I proposed that it be taken half from the Overseas Pakistanis contributory fund lying idle with Overseas Pakistanis Foundation and other half from the huge Community Welfare Fund lying idle with Ministry of Foreign Affairs to which every Pakistani abroad contributes. This 5% extra will in fact be from the pockets of Overseas Pakistanis back to their pocket but would allure billions kept abroad in Banks. Today the condition is these Overseas Pakistanis even on going good to Pakistan, leave these savings behind to be fetched from ATMs in Pakistan when a little is needed. This 5% extra just like Ayub Khanâs bonus voucher scheme will fetch huge cloassal sayings lying in foreign banks.
But our strategies are very strange. From 1983 to 1992 while I was abroad I arranged approximately 4500 accounts of Overseas Pakistanis in HBL, UBL and National Savings. It was my hobby to insist OPs how safe and better it was to keep savings in oneâs own country. All these accounts were opened by sending completed account opening Forms with attachments by mail from abroad. October 2006 during my visit I wished to open a savings account with My Bank at University Road Karahi. I could not believe my ears when the very first question the lady asked me was why do I want to open an account with them. On my telling that I was on a medical visit and I will send the completed Form from abroad as I want a joint account with my wife who had not come to Pakistan, I was told no account can be opened unless I and my wife personally come to the Branch. I can quote hundreds of accounts opened by mail from abroad but perhaps now it has been decided not to accept any money or saving from a Pakistani overseas but from from a foreigner Overseas.
The worst affected in Pakistanâs history is the Mehran Town Housing Scheme Karachi established exclusively for Overseas Pakistanis by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in 1973. Full payment in foreign exchange was received. A lot was spent on its development but 1978 floods, as is claimed, damaged it. Since 1978 lot of floods and earthquakes came in Pakistan, roads and bridges got destroyed and re-built but despite huge re-spending after 1978 this scheme physically had no apparent development sign. Whenever this issue was raised the KDA like a tape recorder had only one word â1978 floods eroded the developmentâ. General Zia made double allotments in this scheme. No body is serious to investigate by taking soil samples from the land to see if digestive system of this land was really so badly mal-functioning that all the money appearing in financial files has actually been digested by this land without showing any naked sign. Someone filed a complaint with the defunct Ehtisab Bureau but perhaps the complaint file disappeared. I wrote twice to the NAB never ever to get any response.
About 10 years back a joint team comprising members of an Action Committee, Overseas Pakistanis Foundation and KDA visited the site and found it was no more suitable for human living. It is surrounded from three sides by Korangi Industrial Area and from fourth side by Malir river bed. Families residence is very dangerous. It was agreed that it should be converted into a small cottage industry area. Some small industrial units had like breeding food etc had erupted on the site when I last visited in 2002 and much has been encroached upon with collaboration of concerned quarters. Since many years nothing has been heard of any proposed progress about this scheme. It appears under a deep planning somewhere it is being waited that the land becomes worst environmentally and is encroached upon or is used for some other âpurposeâ under some new label.
The dream of construction a house has long gone. With savings of 1970s while a two bed room could had been constructed today with that amount even a bare WC can not be. Mr. Arshad Ahmad Haqqani wrote a special column on this unfortunate scheme captioned âI can not remain silent on this injusticeâ. The Secretary information then visited Haqqaniâs residence assuring him that Government would do something but it is now 10 years nothing has been done.
The foreign overseas are being appealed to construct industries here. Why should not the Pakistan overseas allottees of this scheme be allowed to invest on their plots in shape of small cottage industry units by officially declaring it a cottage industry area rather than allottees themselves construct such units by regularly paying âmonthliesâ to keep faces of inspectors to the other side, as do the high rise developers till their illegal poritions are not complete.
The previous City Nazim Mr. Naimat Ullah Advocate spent much time on visits abroad and claiming that his city government was planning good schemes for the welfare of Overseas Pakistanis but practically did nothing.