Dubai: Pakistani community members have slammed their government for poor services at the consulate and embassy and the deteriorating condition of their schools.
The expatriates also accused the consulate and embassy staff of being non-cooperative and aggressive
“Nepotism, ethnicity and favouritism are the norms at our consulate and the embassy while common community members are struggling to get even basic consular services such as renewal of identity cards and passports,” said a leading community member, Chaudhry Noorul Hassan Tanveer, who is also President of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) for the Gulf Region.
He said that the condition at the Pakistani schools being run under the supervision of the Pakistani missions is pathetic as they get poor ratings due to low quality education and mismanagement.
Similar views were echoed by a number of other community members who attended at least two events held in Dubai over the last four days in honour of Irfan Seddiqi, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister of Pakistan on National Affairs. Seddiqi was visiting the UAE on a fact-finding mission to make a report on the problems Pakistani expatriates face in the UAE.
Seddiqi was stunned at the community’s reaction at the event on Thursday where they openly criticised the poor services at the Pakistani missions in the presence of Ambassador Asif Durrani, Consul General Javed Jalil Khattak and other senior officers.
Seddiqi told Gulf News that he would submit his report to the prime minister after his intensive probe into the issues. “I have met a number of community members, held meetings with the consulate and embassy officials and also visited a Pakistani school in Dubai to know their major issues,” he said.
“The attitude of the officials towards the people visiting the consulate is a major concern while education is one of the major problems.
People feel humiliated and do not get due respect when they visit their missions,” he said, and noted that there is a yawning gap between the community and the officials at the missions. He said the space in the consulate is inadequate to cater to the increasing numbers of community members in the UAE. More than 1.2 million Pakistanis live in the UAE and they need much bigger space to get consular services to avoid chaos during rush hours.
He said that he had noticed during his visit that Pakistani schools are in bad shape with no systematic standard procedure followed to hire teachers, principals and other staff. Mismanagement and flaws in administration of schools is aiding the deterioration of the system. He said he would take up these issues with the prime minister on a priority basis.
Seddiqi said that consulate officials also have some limitation as the consulate building is too small to accommodate the more than 1,000 people visiting the consulate every day.
“I have been told that the plan to build a new and bigger consulate building has already been finalised and will be implemented once the government gives approval,” he said.
Other issues which Seddiqi noted was a delay in repatriation of bodies of people who die here, legal and financial services for the people in jail due to petty crimes and improvement of passport and identity card sections. “There is an immediate need to completely overhaul the services at the missions with more space and more staff,” he said.
Seddiqui said that expatriate Pakistanis were playing an important role in the development of the country through their remittances and projection of a positive image of Pakistan. He appreciated the expatriate Pakistanis in UAE for remitting $4.1 billion (Dh15.06 billion) this year. He assured members that the present government would take all measures to extend all possible facilities to them.
