Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Caretaker Chief Minister former Justice Tariq Pervez Khan has said that access to information is a constitutional right of citizens and the provincial government is working on legislation to this effect so that transparency and good governance in government departments could be ensured through the public access to information.
He expressed these views during a briefing given to him by the provincial Information Department on Access to Information draft bill 2013. Provincial Minister for Information and Public Relations, Mussarat Qadeem, Secretary Information, Azmat Hanif Orkzai, Director Information Behramand Khan and other authorities concerned attended the briefing.
The Secretary Information gave detailed briefing on various aspects of the said draft bill. The chief minister directed the authorities concerned to realign and fine tune the draft to suit the ground realities of the province and prevailing circumstances. The chief minister suggested certain changes in the draft and directed to remove the complications and ambiguities in it. He stressed the need to finalise the draft in the minimum possible time. It is worth mentioning here that after the 18th Constitutional Amendment, the federating units have been empowered to have their own legislation to this effect.