THE Government, on Tuesday, announced two significant initiatives with potential to help resolve most of the socio-economic problems of the country if implemented in letter and spirit. As Interior Minister Sarfraz Bugti told illegal immigrants to leave Pakistan by November 01 or face expulsion and seizure of properties and businesses, the Customs Department issued a notification slapping fee on Afghan Transit Trade as part of the measures to curb smuggling of goods.
The comprehensive policy announced to deal with the menace of illegal immigrants is likely to produce the desired results as almost all aspects of the problem have been identified and addressed accordingly. A task force comprising officials of the law enforcing and intelligence agencies has been formed to launch a crackdown against people having illegal national identity cards and take action against their business assets and personal properties. DNA testing would be done to verify nationalities of those having suspected identity cards along with action against those involved in tempering of NADRA’s family trees. This is important in view of the consistent reports about issuance of fake identity documents to foreign nationals, a practice that helped them acquire assets and initiate businesses within the country and indulge in illegal activities abroad bringing bad name to Pakistan. It is appreciable that the Federal Interior Ministry and other departments are closely coordinating with the provinces to identify foreigners staying illegally in different parts of the country, their properties and businesses. Commissioners and Deputy Commissioners have been assigned the task to arrest such elements who would then be deported with the assistance of their embassies in Pakistan. To make the campaign a real success, the Minister also warned of action against any of the Pakistani citizens involved in illegal businesses of undocumented foreigners and providing them accommodation. While expulsion of the existing illegal immigrants from the country was an important initiative, it is all the more important to take effective measures to prevent their re-entry into Pakistan or entry of people from any country without valid travel documents. In this backdrop, it is satisfying that a new policy has been announced to tackle this challenge as well, which envisages a complete ban on entry of any person without passport or visa after November 01. This is universal practice and there is no reason why it is not applied across the board in Pakistan as well where thousands of people cross the western border on a daily basis on different pretexts and in the process become a factor in afflicting socio-economic harms to the country. The action plan against illegal immigrants also envisages establishment of a universal helpline number and a web portal were also being launched for people to come forward as anonymous informants to give information about illegal ID cards, illegal immigrants and other illegal practices such as smuggling and hoarding and it is hoped people would act as responsible citizens to make the campaign a success. It is understood that Afghans would be the most affected by this crackdown as at least 4.2 million Afghan people were living in Pakistan, of which not less than three million were living illegally without any legal documents. However, the Interior Minister explained that the campaign would not focus on illegal immigrants from Afghanistan only as anyone living illegally would be deported irrespective of his nationality. The move to slap processing fee on goods imported under Afghan Transit Trade is also a step in the right direction as there are credible reports of misuse of the facility. Customs officials suspect that certain goods, though destined for Afghanistan, are clandestinely rerouted back into Pakistan and these include those which have either no demand in the war-torn country or their supply is much higher than the local demand. It is because of this that the transit trade demand of Afghanistan stands somewhere between $1 to 2 billion per year but there has been a significant rise in imports under the umbrella of this arrangement. Pakistan has long been urging Afghanistan to help curb smuggling of goods in the garb of ATT but it got no positive response so far, prompting it to impose the processing fee. It is also important to note that the fee is not coercive in nature as it is envisaged in the relevant accord.
