Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has approved Rs500m for families of Pakistani workers stranded in Saudi Arabia, according media reports in Pakistan. Consul General of Pakistan Shehryar Akbar Khan held a meeting with Director General Ministry of Labor and Social Development branch in Makkah Abdullah Al-Olayan and discussed at length the plight of Pakistani workers. Al-Olayan said the Saudi government has started food-catering services for the affected Pakistani workers. He said that all workers will be paid their dues as per Saudi laws. The workers would authorize the mission for collection of their dues and will have the option to either go to Pakistan on exit visa or transfer their sponsorship to another company without payment of any fees. Pakistani migrant workers are not the only ones stranded in Saudi Arabia without pay. The Philippine government estimates that about 9,000 Filipino workers were affected, though the Manila-based labor rights group Migrante said as many as 20,000 could be in distress. The Philippines said Saturday it would within days send government missions to Saudi Arabia to help thousands of jobless Filipinos left stranded across the Kingdom. According to a statement quoted by the Pakistan media, Rs50,000 will be given to each affected family. The premier has directed the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development to prepare authenticated lists of affected families and ensure the disbursement of checks to them at the earliest. Meanwhile a Philippines foreign department statement said that the first batch of Philippine officials will fly to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday "to provide immediate humanitarian, legal, and other consular assistance to the overseas Filipino workers stranded in labor camps across the Kingdom. The immediate target is to bring aid to "those without food and in dire need of medical care and other support services," it added. "A high level delegation of senior Philippine government officials will also be sent soonest to negotiate immediate and long-term solutions with counterparts in the Saudi government," the statement said. "The directive of (President Rodrigo Duterte) is to bring all of them home as soon as possible," Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello told ABS-CBN television in an interview aired Saturday. About 10 million Filipinos work abroad due to low wages or lack of jobs in their own country of about 100 million people. Saudi Arabia is the top international destination for Pakistani migrant workers also with as many as 4.3 million working there. The Kingdom is also the single largest source of remittances for Pakistan with workers sending back $5.9 billion from July 2015-June 2016. According to the State Bank of Pakistan, remittances in June 2016 rose to $582.84 million, up from $536.68 million the year before. — With agencies
