ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi has called for revisiting the laws governing the institution of Wafaqi Mohtasib to provide speedy and free-of-cost justice to the people against the maladministration of government organisations.
The president gave these remarks at a briefing on the role of Wafaqi Mohtasib, given by Federal Ombudsman Syed Tahir Shahbaz, at the Federal Ombudsman Secretariat, on Tuesday.
The president emphasised the need for further enhancing the outreach of Wafaqi Mohtasib to remote areas of the country to provide speedy and free of cost justice to the aggrieved persons, at their doorstep, against administrative injustices.
In order to help and facilitate the Overseas Pakistanis, the president asked the Federal Ombudsman to create a special cell to redress the grievances and rectify injustices done to expatriates through the maladministration of government agencies.
The meeting was attended by Acting Secretary Wafaqi Mohtasib Aftab Akbar Durrani, Consultant (Legal Affairs) President's Secretariat Justice Sayed Zahid Hussain, and senior advisors of the Wafaqi Mohtasib.
Federal Ombudsman Syed Tahir Shahbaz, briefed the president about the achievements of his organisation during his tenure.
He apprised the meeting that Wafaqi Mohtasib had witnessed a considerable increase in the number of complaints due to its role in provision of justice and a public awareness campaign through media and awareness seminars.
He informed that Wafaqi Mohtasib had received 133,251 complaints during 2020 as compared to 73,059 during 2019, which is 82 percent higher than the last year.
He highlighted that the implementation rate of the Federal Ombudsman's decisions was 99.6 percent during the year 2020.
Regarding the disposal of complaints, the mohtasib apprised that his organisation had disposed of 130,112 complaints during 2020 as against 74,892 in 2019, which is an increase of 74 percent as compared to last year.
In order to help address the complaints belonging to remote areas, he informed that new regional offices had been established at Abbottabad and Kharan to provide free of cost justice to the people.
He further stated that the number of online complaints had increased by seven times and reached 77,930 in the year 2020 from 11,289 in the year 2019. He informed that regional offices at Quetta and Bahawalpur had registered 643.1 percent and 302.9 percent increase in complaints during 2020 as compared to the year 2019.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021