Pakistan's deteriorating economic conditions are giving a blow to its embassies overseas, especially in Europe and the US, with missions finding it difficult to even pay their staff and service providers.
In one of the incidents, Pakistan Embassy in Rome has reportedly been recently sued for non-payment of telephone dues. The embassy was sued by Vodafone, the telecom operator for Euros 11,300 in unpaid invoices.
The company has knocked on the doors of a local civil court and is seeking compensation for not only non-payment of invoices but also late fee payment surcharges and legal fees with respect to Pak Embassy/staff's unpaid bills reported Al Arabiya.
To settle the dispute, the telecom provider asked the embassy to settle the case for a lesser amount. However, even then the matter could not be resolved due to the lack of funds.
Vodafone is not the only company that is at loggerheads with Pakistan over nonpayment. Notably, Earlier, Pakistan Embassies in Serbia as well as in the US were in the news for non-payment of salaries due to financial crunch.
The dispute in cases, like in Serbia leads to protests on social media against the non-remittal of dues. The embassy members were even compelled to pull out their children from school due to default of fees.
In another such case, Pak Embassy in Washington was unable to pay the monthly wages of its contractual employees for around 4 months. What transpired after that was the tendering resignation owing to delays and non-payment of dues by the staff members, reported Al Arabiya.
At times, the lack of funds was also attributed to the diversion of funds from Pak Community Welfare (PCW) following the Covid-19 crisis. These reports were discarded by the Foreign office at a time when the country is reeling under a severe economic crisis already.
( With inputs from ANI )
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