Belarus’s offer

Salman Bashir,

Islamabad

In a highly important development Belarus has extended a generous offer to invite 150,000 young, highly skilled Pakistani workers to what prime minister Shehbaz Sharif has said “contribute to the nation-building efforts of Belarus”. The prime minister has made these remarks during his two-day official visit to Belarus at the invitation of President Aleksandr Lukashenkoo. In my view, however, the incumbent government or the prime minister needs to answer why the country has to devote the nation’s most precious asset — young and highly skilled workforce — to the ‘nation-building’ efforts of Belarus when the country itself needs such a highly talented pool of people for its own economic and social development. The government ought to have agreed to sending only semi-skilled or non-skilled workforce to this landlocked country. Actually, our country lacks well-qualified skilled workforce, not jobs per se.