Telecom workers get chance to work abroad

[LahoreEstate]

Sunday, May 17, 2009
By Azeem Samar

KARACHI: As the World Telecommunication Day is being observed around the world on May 17, a number of telecommunication workers of Pakistan have got a new foreign destination to work and offer their skilled services.

Thanks to the policy of the private management of Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited, over 500 of its workers have been posted out to the United Arab Emirates to work for the telecom services of Etisalat, PTCL’s parent company.

The PTCL’s move of seconding or sending its workers on deputation to the UAE has been widely accepted by the concerned quarters of PTCL workers, creating a favourable environment within the telecom utility for implementation and furthering the policy of posting its workers to a foreign destination.

Since a year, PTCL has also redesigned its in-service training programmes at its training centres. The privatised telecom utility has now been offering its workers new short duration refresher courses related to modern telecommunication and internet technologies whose usage in Pakistan is limited but their scope and applications in the UAE is much wider.

A large majority of the telecom workers who were seconded to the UAE had attended these refresher courses at training centres. Afterwards they expressed their willingness and were selected for the deputation programme.

It is yet to be seen how withdrawal of the PTCL workers from Pakistan would affect the provision of telecom services in the country, as even in major urban cities consumers face hardships in getting faults in their telephone service rectified.

“As for as my understanding of the PTCL services is concerned, it is a win-win situation. PTCL has been sending its workers on deputation abroad and that does not create any hindrance to the telecom services being provided in the country,” said Zubair Motiwala, a leading industrialist in Karachi.

“PTCL like any other state-owned large organisation had faced overstaffing and with the advent of technology in the telecom sector, the need for manpower has further decreased. Thus, it is a good idea of PTCL to send its workers abroad to work,” said Motiwala.

Pakistan Telecommunication Employees Union President Ziauddin said that his union had no objection over the secondment scheme as it has provided lucrative financial incentives to telecom workers.

“Several of my fellow workers have now been working in Dubai or other parts of the UAE and have often expressed their satisfaction over the working conditions and emolument packages being offered to them,” he said.

“While working in the country, they had been drawing a salary between Rs12,000 to Rs13,000, but in the UAE they have been able to earn salaries equivalent to Rs90,000 to Rs100,000, which is quite a handsome offer,” he said.

However, when asked if withdrawal of telecom workers from the country has or would create a shortage of PTCL manpower in the country, Ziauddin said that it would surely have an effect on the PTCL workforce as already a large number of telecom utility’s employees had left the organisation by availing the Voluntary Separation Scheme.

“After employees left the organisation under the VSS, PTCL had no option other than shutting down several of its exchanges in far-flung areas of the country, instead offering subscribers of these areas the wireless phone service,” he said.

Over 30,000 staff of PTCL left the organisation under its VSS scheme that was completed in two phases till late 2007.

PTCL Senior Executive Vice-President, HR, Syed Mazhar Hussain, when contacted, said that over 500 PTCL workers belonging to various designations had been working in the UAE under the deputation programme for over a year.

He said arrangements and procedures were in place to check that withdrawal of any PTCL worker under the deputation programme should not create a shortage of staff in the particular area or region of the country where they had been working before being chosen for secondment.

He negated the impression that refresher courses being offered at the PTCL training centres had been redesigned in order to match the telecom skills and technology required to work for the UAE telecom sector. “The courses have been redesigned to give PTCL workers a flavour of new telecom technologies being introduced in the country,” he said.

“Hardly 100 or 150 PTCL workers out of 500 or more who were selected for the secondment programme attended the refresher courses at the training centres. Attending any refresher at the training centre is not a pre-requisite for getting selected for the deputation scheme,” he said.


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