Experience letter attestation by Ministry of Foreign Affairs
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Hi Tariq! Hope you're doing great.
I had been planning to get back to you in particular and to all in general on this, but I'd still been busy with my own visa processing/travelling commitments.
I had decided to write thoroughly about it once I got some time.
But anyway, coming to your question, yes, I did find a way to have an Experience letter attested by Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Though it's not an ideal way and I do not like to advertise/market the agencies which are getting the job done for the people. But unfortunately that's the only possible solution I could find out for the general public.
To name a few agencies which would be able to do the job done for you are:
•  Gerry's Visa
•  MamooInPakistan
•  ZAFAR & ASSOCIATES - LLP
These are just the ones I'd contacted. The time they said it can take was around 1 week or so.
Now, the question whether how can an Individual without any reference get all of it done, without any third party’s involvement, which government body to go to and all, I still do not have any clarity on that. There may exist a way, there may not..
Lastly, I had a call with Sami and explained to him what he could possibly do to get his letter being attested.
Thank you so much Usman for this valuable update. Your post will help many in the future.
It's wonderful to hear that you got the work done.
I am making all the efforts to get our voices heard to the relevant authorities and resolve this painful issue. I totally agree that its not ideal, and we shouldn't be paying heavy service charges for this kind of work which is our Right. BUT we don't have any choice unfortunately.
Would you like to mention how much you paid as service charges, if you feel ok? Other can also get know regarding this. Not necessary to mention, it's up to you.
What I am trying to do is to channelize this problem this to right direction. I have a contact which can be helpful for us. He has links in Foreign Office. I have spoken to him and conveyed the problem in detail. Let's see what happens.
What I want now from you Usman is, to send me a voice message and describe the Pain and Pressure you went through for this attestation process, which is your legal right. I will forward this voice note to him to make my point authentic, strong and to prove the scale of the problem. I will send you my WhatsApp privately.Â
Also, I think you would have to get a stamp from Protector Office before taking flight. This is another painful process which I have strong objection about.
I pray for your success and hope that you will have a very bright future, Insh'Allah.
Don't forget to send me voice message.
Regards,
  Muhammad
Deae Friend,
I had been through this situation in past few weeks and with little tips followed from Usman and few things were required to be done on my part so I finally got my documents attested from M.O.F.A without any extra hurdles.
Here is what I did:
1st:
I went to the inquiry counter at M.O.F.A camp office, and showed them my Experience Letters which are solely private organizations, and as usual these companies like most other IT companies are not registerred with any Labor authority such as Chamber of Commerce. So at first they said go to P.E.C and get it attested from P.E.C.
I told them that these are not registerred with P.E.C.
They saw the docs again and then they told me to get it attested from any government officer BPS-17 or above and then we will attest the letters.
2nd:
Experience certificate format:
It should be an original letterhead and also signed and stampped or attested with stamp from your source company it belongs to.
Should be titled as: TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN
Your Full Name
Job Designation
Dates: starting to end of job
3rd: I had already all formats ready except one company. Which had no stamp on it. Only signatures were done on it. This is because in Pakistan it is a common concept that originsl letterheads, payslips, prescriptions don't need stamp. That's also true but it's when docs are to be used in Pakistan only. For abroad, specially for attestation from MOFA followed by destination country's Embassy, we all need to get the docs stamped from your company, then get them attested from any BPS17 Government officer on backside, then M.O.F.A will do it, and once M.O.F.A does it then Embassy will do it.
Note: if your company is already registerreed with P.E.C of Chamber of Commerce then follow the pattern of these authorities first of all and after they attest then it is not needed to get doc attested by any government officer.
Last but not the least, in my case, the Embassy also asked some supporting documents of all previoua companies, such as
Original Offer Letter
Original Payalips
Original ID card
Any appreciation certificate or document will also do the job.
If you have all of these it's good otherwise any of the matching doc you have then don't forget to take that supporting doc when going to embassy. I repeat! These supporting docs are not required at M.O.F.A
Best regards
Samiullah
Dear Sami,
This is awesome work. Thank you for this detailed answer.
This experience will help so many professionals in the future.
JazakAllah Khair
Regards,
  Muhammad
As you all know whenever someone wants to apply for a job, they do need work experience, now just imagine a person sitting abroad having experience in Pakistan and want to show it in a foreign country. How do you propose he would do that?
No one would accept just a piece of paper with some private company stamp, they need assurance, guarantee, and that comes from the foreign ministry of Pakistan.
Let me tell you as I went through all this process, I came to realize that ministry of foreign affairs Pakistan (MOFA) does not attest or notarize your experience letter at all, There’s no such institute or legal department which would take responsibility for notarizing the private employee experience letter, which is a quite serious matter and most people have gone through that.
Well, I have gone through hell just to have notarization of my genuine experience letter from MOFA, My friend took my letter to a 19 scale government officer and attested that in case MOFA wants some proof if the letter is genuine or not, they rejected it and said we don’t accept these private experience letters. Then I thought it shouldn’t be private, so my brother took my little piece of paper to judicatory in Islamabad where after quite some debate my brother had the attestation.
Then my brother came back to MOFA and they give me a straight big NO, after that an agent standing outside of MOFA approached my brother and asked for a huge amount of money to get it done. so my brother bribed him probably 15000 PKR where it cost only 500 PKR to notarize the documents.
Anyway, the only reason for telling my story is, to have ease in the future, to make the government realize that there are private employees who need to get notarization from the ministry of foreign affairs.
Dear Asfandyar,
Thank you for sharing your painful experience. I am trying my level best to resolve this issue once for all.
I have raised this issue to some officials to MOFA and also to a Pakistani Embassy outside Pakistan.
Lets not lose hope and we all should try with whatever capacity we have.
Regards,
  Muhammad
Hi All, I had faced the same issue and went through border run every 3 months, due to no Work certificate for WP, I m able to resolve this issue with MOFA, let me know if anyone still have this problem or pls post in other forums to help our Pakistan community thanks. IB me for details
Hi Shakeel,
What do you mean by border run every 3 months?
Do you cross Vietnam border and re-enter Vietnam for visa renewal on Pakistani passport ?
Please share details.
I understand why the extra scrutiny for workers from Pakistan:
Link to this news item from 2020:
@mtariqkhan I m dual a national
-@aranashakeel
A dual national (dual citizen) of which two nations?
If one of those two nations is Vietnam, why were 3 month border runs necessary?
I'll say it...
We have a new member attempting to get people to send him private messages about ways to circumvent the legal requirements here.
Meanwhile citizens of every nation including Pakistan should know that the recent changes to Visa law allow every single one of you to apply for the three months tourist visa either single entry or multiple entry.
definitely no need to send somebody a private message to get them to talk you into some sort of a money making scam for them when you can apply online just like every other citizen of the world.
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