950826

OPF invites overseas

Pakistanis

to invest at home

DUBAI: The Overseas Pakistanis Foundation (OPF) is widening its membership net to include emigre's of Pakistani origin long settled in the West as part of a plan to revamp the moribund image of the government-sponsored organisation and radically change its direction.

Stating this, the OPF's new managing director, Shahid Mahmood Nawaz said here on Saturday he proposed to open the organisation to "life membership" by people of Pakistani origin who are settled permanently abroad.

A once-only payment of Rs 1050 will give access to members to a host of OPF services, including an ILO-approved pension scheme, the first of its kind by any labour exporting country.

So far we have been functioning as a welfare organization spending most of the time and resources looking after Overseas Pakistanis (OPS) families. The emphasis from now will be on persuading OPS to invest back home, to mobilies and motivate other investors, return if they can to put their acquird skills and experience in service of the motherland, he said.

To give substance to pursuit of this goal, the OPF is inviting OPS of means to join it in collaborative ventures such as building and running hospitals and educational institutions, hotels and parks, and industrial and commercial ventures.

Nawaz said his organisation will welcome concrete proposals for any of these ventures but more especially industrial projects, small to large scale, which would be located in a new industrial estate the OPF is setting up near Islamabad.

What we are looking for now is a permanent membership body which will contribute ideas as well as financial support to the OPF", he added.

One of the services proposal for this new body of members is the pension scheme. The study of this scheme was undertaken at the behest of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) which has also funded it.

The concept is that an average OPF spends about for years working abroad. A contribution during that period of Rs 500 a month could earn such a person three times that amount per month for life.

A specially created trust headed by a former Chief Justice of Pakistan will administer the scheme which is now being finalised by the OPF's Pension Cell.

Nawaz said he expects to sign 100,000 contributors within the first year. Under the existing proposals, pension payouts will be in rupees, but the organisation is also looking at other payment arrangements for members permanently settled abroad.-PPI