Federal Ombudsman Mr Ejaz Ahmad Qureshi briefing Chairman & CEO of Pakistan Observer Mr Faisal Zahid Malik about the working and achievements of his office.—PO photo
The office of the Wafaqi Mohtasib (Federal Ombudsman) of Pakistan has processed a record num-ber of public complaints in the last year with regard to poor governance, maladministration, delay in issuance of arrears/pensions, dues and many others against various government departments and agen-cies.
Besides a Task Force on street children and a sepa-rate office established in the Wafaqi Mohtasib for addressing complaints of the overseas Pakistanis are also the two new feathers added to its cap. The Wafaqi Mohtasib decided to move in this new direction after an overwhelming number of complaints were received and quite significant progress has been made in this direction as well.
Federal Ombudsman Ejaz Ahmad Qureshi shared some of these achievements in a meeting with Chairman and CEO of Pakistan Observer Mr Faisal Zahid Malik who called on him at the Wafaqi Mohtasib head office. Only last year, we received a record 194,099 complaints regarding the maladmin-istration of the government departments and proc-essed them accordingly, the Federal Ombudsman said, adding, this is 18pc higher than the previous year 2022.
Out of all those complaints, 193,028 were disposed of which is again 22pc higher than the year 2022 he said and presented a copy of the Annual Report of the Federal Ombudsman to Mr Faisal Zahid Malik. The office of the Ombudsman was providing speedy and free-of-cost justice to the complainants against the maladministration of various government departments since its establishment back in 1983, said Mr Qureshi who has been serving as Federal Om-budsman since 2021. He is a retired bureaucrat and served on top government administrative posts and retired as Federal Secretary.
The Wafaqi Mohtasib highlighted that the opening of new regional offices in Balochistan, Muzaffara-bad and Sindh, holding of Khuli Katcheries, launch-ing of the Informal Resolution of Disputes mecha-nism, and visits of Mohtasib’s inspection teams to far and wide of the country to help address public complaints, besides leading to an increase in the registration of complaints.
He further said that the office of Overseas Paki-stanis in the Wafaqi Mohtasib Secretariat had also processed a record 202,367 complaints received through Pakistan Missions abroad, and One Win-dow Facilitation Desks is functional at all interna-tional airports of the country.
On addressing street children’s plight, he said to prevent exploitation of children as in la-bour/beggary, a study titled “Inquiry into the Plight of Street Children in ICT Challenges & Way For-ward,” was conducted.
The research sets out priorities and gives evidence-based recommendations to the key stakeholders.
This is the first-ever empirical study focusing on street children in ICT, he said adding, the Task Force conducted 506 in-depth interviews including 443 street children, 44 community members includ-ing parents of street children and 19 officials of LEAs and service providers.
The report recommended a robust mechanism for the rescue and care of children in needs; registration of refugees on priority basis and basic facilities of health and to ensure education and health facilities regardless of their status. About the Ombudsman’s jurisdiction in the government offices/agencies, he said the Ombudsman’s office could take notice and direct all the government ministries and agencies, for instance WAPDA, IESCO, SNGPL, SSGPL, BISP, Pakistan Post, NADRA. The aggrieved public can file complaints against almost all the ministries and their attached bodies except Defence and For-eign Affairs ministries, he said adding, there too, Ombudsman could intervene and issue directions in certain areas like overseas Pakistanis and the com-plaints by the civilians working in the Defence Min-istry. All complaints are to be decided within a 3 to 4 month time.
Mr Faisal Zahid Malik appreciated the performance of the Mohtasib and termed it a forum where people from the far-flung areas could get their complaints resolved in a speedy and free of cost way.
