Pak Economic Crisis and its Fallout

Pakistan’s deteriorating foreign exchange has cast its shadow on its embassies overseas, especially in Europe and the US, with missions finding it difficult to even pay their staff and service providers. 

Pak Embassy in Rome has reportedly been recently sued for non-payment of telephone dues. Vodafone, the telecom operator, has apparently approached a local civil court seeking compensation amounting to over €11,300 for unpaid invoices, including late fee payment surcharges and legal fee with respect to Pak Embassy/staff’s unpaid bills. Vodafone was learnt to have offered the Pak Embassy to settle the case for a lesser amount, but the same could not be done possibly due to lack of funds.

Earlier, Pak Embassies in Serbia as well as in the US were in the news for non-payment of salaries due to financial crunch. Pak mission’s staff in Serbia even protested on social media against the non-remittal of dues. They were apparently even compelled to pull out their children from school due to default of fees.

Similarly, Pak Embassy in Washington was unable to pay the monthly wages of its contractual employees for around 4 months. The issue escalated with a decade-old staffer reportedly tendering resignation owing to delays and non-payment of dues.  The failure to pay salaries to locally hired Embassy staff was apparently attributed to diversion of funds from Pak Community Welfare (PCW) following the Covid-19 crisis. The situation took a serious turn when the embassy had to borrow money from other account heads to pay monthly salaries. The unpaid staff workers even wrote a letter to the Ambassador urging him to intervene.

However, Pakistan’s Foreign Office “outrightly rejected” reports regarding the alleged financial difficulties faced by some Pakistani Missions abroad. Interestingly, Pak mission in Washington even proposed hiring of lobbying firm at the cost of over USD 1 lakh per month even as the country was reeling under severe economic crisis.