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CE briefed on restructuring of foreign office

ISLAMABAD: A comprehensive briefing was given to a meeting chaired by Chief Executive General Pervez Musharraf on the restructuring of the foreign office and missions aborad here on Tuesday.

The meeting was held in the light of the directive of the Chief Executive to improve the working of the ministry of foreign affairs (MOFA), and to make it a more dynamic, viable and effective organisation.

Lt Gen Hamid Javaid, who is heading a committee for the restructuring of foreign office, briefed the meeting. The committee comprises senior representatives of the ministries of foreign affairs, commerce, finance, information and the establishment division.

The participants of the meeting included the ministers of foreign affairs, finance, commerce, the advisor to the chief executive on national affairs and information, the foreign secretary and other senior civil and military officers.

Gen Hamid briefed about the various recommendations and suggestions, which had been arrived at after extensive consultations and reconciling differing views.

Appreciating the quality and standard of the briefing, the Chief Executive stressed upon the need to have an integrated approach in which tangible and well defined goals would be given to the foreign missions.

The aim is to promote the political, security, economic and commercial interests of the country.

Gen Musharraf said that the national interest was of paramount importance and was being accorded the highest priority.

He added that the deliberations to improve the working of the ministry of foreign affairs and foreign missions had been initiated to serve this end.

One oif the major decisions was to encourage an integrated approach to diplomacy in the light of rapid change and emerging challenges facing Pakistan.

Significant rationalisation and improvement in the work of the MOFA are to be assured affecting substantial savings while also enhancing efficiency.

The meeting also approved in principle the setting up of an efficient and capable policy planning forum in MOFA and it was directed to work out the modalities in this regard.

Discussions were also held to improve functional working of the missions abroad and to enforce various austerity measures, including reducing the number of missions in view of changed requirements and curtailing superfluous administrative expenditure.

Recommendations to improve the career management of officers of the MOFA and providing better professional training and accommodation to them were also agreed. APP