Governor Sindh, Dr Ishratul Ebad Khan, has highlighted the role of the office of Ombudsman towards good governance and helps improve the performance of the government departments. He stated this when the Provincial Ombudsman presented the performance report-2009 to him at the Governor House here on Thursday. The governor pointed out that the process of redressal of complaints could be made more effective for providing relief to the people.
He appreciated the performance of the office of Provincial Ombudsman and said that it is contributing towards transparency. Dr Ishrat also lauded the setting up of the Children's Complaint Cell and assured his Cupertino in this respect. Presenting the report, Provincial Ombudsman, Asad Ashraf Malik, said that ever since the establishment in 1991, the Office of the Ombudsman Sindh has been actively pursuing its objectives of providing prompt and affordable justice to the people against the 'maladministration of the provincial government departments'.
He further stated that during the period under report 29,614 cases were decided out of which relief was provided in 20,827 cases, which comes to 70 per cent. In the year 2009, complaints received were 6,617 out of which 2,980 were admitted for investigation under Section 10 of the Ombudsman's Act. 1,409 cases were decided, providing relief in 1,057 cases and percentage of the relief cases was 75 per cent.
Asad Ashraf pointed out that a major initiative in 2009 was the establishment of Children Complaints Cell in collaboration with Unicef, which was formally inaugurated on 6th August 2009 by the Governor Sindh who also announced a sum of Rs five million for the cell.
He said Children Complaints Office provided unique opportunity of creating awareness and formulating child friendly policies, which could create conducive environment for realising the ideals enshrined in the Convention on Rights of the Child. As a preliminary step all Regional Directors have been asked to start the Children Complaints Cells in their respective offices to take cognisance of child related issues/complaints and ensure finalisation of the investigation of such cases with minimum period of time but not later than 90 days.
During the year good number of complaints were received in the Children Complaints Office, which were admitted for regular investigation and the most important case was a Suo-Motu notice taken on a news item published in daily "Dawn" regarding gang rape with a girl student in District Khairpur.
Though the Children Complaints Office is at initial stage, the Ombudsman Secretariat established good referral partnerships with the LHRLA and other renowned NGOs of the province with the view to approach at the grassroots level and help to improve the pathetic plight of our children.