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Pakistan Foreign Missions Employees Not Paid Salaries Over Dollar Crunch

© AP Photo / Rahmat GulSecurity stands guard outside the Pakistan Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Nov. 4, 2019.
Security stands guard outside the Pakistan Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, Nov. 4, 2019. - Sputnik India, 1920, 14.12.2022
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So far, Pakistani employees at embassies in France, Germany, Iran, Turkey, the United States, Oman, and Afghanistan have raised salary concerns.
Pakistani employees serving at the country’s diplomatic missions around the globe have not been paid their salaries for around four months, as the country has faced a crippling shortage of forex reserves, officials have told Pakistani media.
The employees affected have conveyed to the federal finance and foreign ministries that they have been facing serious issues in handling day-to-day affairs owing to non-payment of dues.
Pakistan has been facing one of its worst economic crisis in recent history caused by depleting forex reserves owing to high food and fuel prices in the wake of western countries’ coordinated efforts to phase out Russian commodities from the global supply chains.
High prices led to domestic inflation reaching a record of over 27 per cent in August.
Concurrently, Pakistani rupee also hit a record low of 240 vis-à-vis the US dollar in September, amid successive rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve to tame inflation in view of high global commodity prices.
The economic crisis has been exacerbated by country-wide flooding in July-August, which led to over $30 billion in damages and caused over 1,700 deaths.
In this Oct. 1, 2016, file photo, Pakistan army soldiers monitor the area from the hilltop Bagsar post on the line of control, that divides Kashmir between Pakistan and India, near Bhimber, some 166 kilometers (103 miles) from Islamabad, Pakistan. - Sputnik India, 1920, 13.12.2022
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Indian Security Officials Cautious About Developments in Pakistan
In a bid to prevent the outflow of US dollars, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has imposed a series of capital controls, including restricting the permissible amount which could be carried overseas to $5,000.
However, these measures have done little to improve the domestic forex reserves, as the SBP said this month that the they fell to a four-year low of $6.72 billion in the week ending 2 December.
SBP Governor Jameel Ahmad has said that Islamabad is hoping to clear nearly $4.7 billion in foreign debt repayments in the next seven months. The country owes $23 billion in debt repayments at the start of the year, on top of a $10 billion current account deficit.
Ahmad has described reduction in foreign remittances from expatriate Pakistanis and interest payment on government bonds as the primary reasons behind dropping forex reserves.
In order to alleviate the forex crisis, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in July approved a $1.1 billion loan under an Extended Financing Facility (EFF).
Islamabad has also said that it is pinning hopes on around $5 billion in investments from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and multilateral institutions in order to help ease the economic situation.
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