PR No.321 Islamabad: March 30, 2017

The Spokesperson of the Interior Ministry has strongly contradicted the statement of the former Interior Minister regarding issuance of visas ‘secretly’ to the foreigners.

Terming the statement as incorrect and baseless, the Spokesperson reiterated his call that if the Senator has any proof in this regard, he should come up with it publicly. Interior Ministry’s Spokesperson challenged the former Interior Minister to quote even one instance where unqualified individual has been granted official or diplomatic visa for Pakistan.

The Spokesperson of the Interior Ministry said that issuance of visa has nothing to do with Coalition Support Fund. It is surprising that a former Interior Minister is not aware of that. What is more surprising is the fact the he does not seem to know that CSF ended quite some time ago.

He said that it needs to be emphasized that present government believes in transparent visa regime and has put to an end all practices that allowed unchecked issuance of visas to foreigners or their unaccounted stay and movements in the country.

The Spokesperson said that the present government in an effort to undo irregularities of past regarding issuance of visas and to keep an account of number of foreigners present in the country, took a number of steps which are on record. These include compilation of data of foreigners present in the country, regularization of visa regime, withdrawal of unlawful powers to embassies regarding issuance of visa and most recently the effort to digitize visa system with the introduction of online visa for Pakistan.

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