OICCI third security awareness session held online on July 28, 2022 for security experts of member companies, on the subject “External/Internal factors form perspective of Pakistan’s security threat”. The session was conducted by Mr. Hugh Cursons, Regional Security Advisor, Chevron Corporation.

M Abdul Aleem, Secretary General OICCI and Mr. Ahmed Zahid Zaheer, Managing Committee members and chairman, Security Subcommittee gave brief introduction about OICCI, Speaker and topic of the session and welcomed the speaker and participants to the session. Mr. Curson shared information about Pakistan’s Political, Security and economic challenges that involve rising global inflation (fuel and food) due to pandemic dislocation and recent War between Russia and Ukraine, as well as domestic factors. He added that the Pakistan’s situation is not similar like Sri Lanka but there are some parallels that raise potential issues.

South Asian countries including Pakistan are facing significant challenges of increasing inflation, fiscal mismanagement, and economic crisis. He said that Pakistan needs to take right decisions/measures to avoid similar situation like Sri Lanka. In short/medium term if energy crisis persists and global inflation take momentum. Likely possibilities of political rallies, movements, and demonstrations to capitalize/resulting economic and political volatility.

The key takeaway of the session is that companies should have integrated security and emergency response plans, that ensures the appropriate safeguards are in place. Secondly, employees should also be properly communicated as to their role/responsibilities so that they can respond at short notice. The session was attended by 45 participants and after Questions/Answer the session ended with vote of thanks.