A meeting of the Senate Standing Committee on Overseas Pakistanis & HRD was held at Parliament House under the Chairmanship of Senator Zeeshan Khanzada, Chairman Committee.  At the outset, Senator Zeeshan Khanzada, Chairman Committee inquired about the whereabouts of Minister for Overseas Pakistanis and the Federal Secretary, Overseas Pakistanis whose presence in the meeting was mandatory under the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business to apprise the August forum about policy initiatives being taken to incentivize Overseas Pakistanis to bring their investment in the homeland as well as to enhance their efforts to create more job opportunities for migrant workers in various sectors abroad.  

The Committee met to discuss the proposals of Ministry of Overseas to extend the Sehat Card facility to the migrant workers and their heirs at par with the strategy devised by Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and the achievements of successful conduct of Overseas Pakistanis convention by OPF, and the pendency of litigation of EOBI.

At that juncture Senators Shahadat Awan, Zameer Hussain Ghumro and Gurdeep Singh while expressing grave concerns over the un-intimated absence of the Minister, stated the Committee meeting was convened after a gap of two months period despite the fact that the last meeting was also postponed on the request of the Ministry.

The Senators were of the unanimous view that they come up to attend the Committee meetings from far flung areas of the country by setting aside their other engagements, on the other hand, the Minister and Ministry officials was not paying due respect to the Parliamentary forum and termed it breach of privilege of the Senate.

On the request of Senators Shahadat Awan, Zameer Hussain Ghumro, Gurdeep Singh and Kazim Ali Shah, Senator Zeeshan Khanzada, Chairman Committee deferred consideration of agenda till first week of May, 2025, with the directions to convey sentiments of the Committee to the Minister and Federal Secretary for Overseas and to come up in the next meeting with complete details and record on agenda items.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP)