A report has claimed that the Embassy of Pakistan in Washington had run out of funds to pay salaries for at least four months to some of its employees.
According to The News, at least five of the Pakistani embassy’s locally recruited contractual employees faced delays and non-payment of their monthly wages from August 2021. One staffer out of the five affected, who had been working for the past ten years with the embassy, resigned in September owing to delays and non-payment.
These unpaid local staffers were hired by the embassy on an annual contract basis and worked for the mission on bare-minimum salaries, which ranges from 2,000 to 2,500 dollars per person per month.
Read more: Pakistani Embassy in Serbia mocks its own govt with song ‘Ghabrana Nahi Hai’
The local hires, whether permanent or contractual, do not get perks and privileges that Foreign Office employees enjoy, including healthcare benefits. The domestic staffers are usually hired to help with the ‘Consular section’ that provides visa, passport, notarization, and other consular services to the diaspora.
Sources said that such staffers are paid out of the Pakistan Community Welfare (PCW) fund, which is generated locally through services fees and then dispensed locally as well.
Sources familiar with the situation say that the PCW fund collapsed last year because the money was diverted to purchase ventilators and other medical equipment after the COVID-19 pandemic.
The news surfaced a day after Pakistan’s Embassy of Serbia claimed that its employees have not been paid for three months. In the tweet, the embassy mentioned the claim also uploaded a satire song ‘Ghabrana Nahi Hai’ mocking Prime Minister Imran Khan.
