KARACHI: Sindh Ombudsman office completes a decade
KARACHI, Nov 6: Office of the provincial Ombudsman has received over 70,000 complaints in a decade of working, apart from suo-motu actions.
The Sindh Ombudsman office was established in October 1991, the first one in the province and Azad Kashmir, and after a decade of working, it has provided relief to 11,957 complainants, while 25,829 cases were advised to refer to concerned agencies, higher authorities or await action by authorities.
The word “Ombudsman” is a Scandinavian term which means “an official who investigates private individuals’ complaints against the government or public office.”
Therefore, out of a total of 70,767 complaints received at the provincial Ombudsman office, 26,817 complaints were rejected for matters pertaining either to the federal government or against private citizens.
During the past ten years, the Ombudsman office record shows that the people of Sindh have lodged complaints against 28 provincial departments, while complaints were admitted against 15 departments.
The maximum number of complaints were made against the education department with 9,743 complaints, followed by the home/police department with 9,014 complaints and then the revenue department.
The education department again tops among those whose cases were admitted with 2,685 complaints, followed by 2,581 against local bodies of Sindh and 2,507 against the now defunct KMC.
Though 11,957 complainants were provided relief since 1991 by the Sindh Ombudsman office, politicians and bureaucrats view things differently.
The present Ombudsman, Justice (retd) Haziqul Khairi, in the annual report of the provincial Ombudsman 2000, has remarked that “politicians in power and bureaucrats regard the Ombudsman as an adversary and fault-finder, and they very often dispute the binding status of his recommendations.”
Apart from taking the cases of complainants who have approached the concerned department and their cases are not pending in any court of law, the Ombudsman can also take suo-motu action against any injustice or maladministration of any provincial government department.
During the year 2000, 11 suo-motu cases were taken by the Sindh Ombudsman which is the highest in its decade record.
All of these cases related to matters pertaining to public interest, such as increasing number of dog-bite cases in Karachi which was in response to about 5,000 dog-bite reports in six months of the year 2000.
Two different suo-motu actions were also taken regarding improper housing schemes, where allotments to 32,000 and 29,000 applicants, respectively, of the Malir Development Authority and Lyari Development Authority were delayed.
In the former case, the Karachi Development Authority, LDA and the Board of Revenue were at loggerheads as there is no land for the scheme, while the money of the applicants has been spent by the KDA.
Similarly, in the MDA case, where a large portion of the said land for the scheme has been with the Pakistan Army even before Partition, the Ombudsman ordered freezing of consultants’ accounts worth about Rs70 million.
During the late 90s, the Ombudsman had decided a similar case of Kohsar Extension Housing Scheme in Hyderabad where the money of thousands of applicants was in ambiguity as the said land had been transferred to the police.
Later, the land was retrieved under orders from the Ombudsman and a settlement was made between the warring parties.
Another very important suo-motu action taken by the Sindh Ombudsman was bringing the police and the civic agencies of Karachi at a table to discuss the case of police stations illegally set up on lands belonging to the KMC/KDA.
During the course of inquiry, it was revealed that about 40 per cent police stations in Karachi are built on encroached lands.
However, before the formation of the city government, a working solution was decided between the police department, KDA and then the KMC.
Taking suo-motu action against the civic bodies, the Ombudsman called their officials over the unavailability of public toilets in all major cities of Sindh.
The Ombudsman has also held seminars on very important matters of daily life. The first seminar was held on road safety in Karachi, followed by town planning.
It is worth mentioning here that though there has been a sharp increase in Pakistan’s urban population, mainly due to the migration of people from rural areas to cities and towns, no seminar or high-level discussion has ever been conducted in Pakistan.
The third seminar organized by the provincial Ombudsman was on the issue of solid and hospital waste management in the city, where nearly 40pc of the daily garbage and debris generated is not lifted by civic agencies.
Though Karachi is a mega-city, only the Aga Khan University Hospital has an incinerator to dispose off hazardous and infectious waste.
It is extremely difficult to state how many hospitals and other medical units dispose off their hazardous and infectious waste properly.
Sindh was the first province to establish the important office of the Ombudsman in 1991, and it is an important institution to provide speedy and inexpensive justice against excesses and malpractice of the government.
Though it is largely acknowledged all over Pakistan, the NWFP government has yet to establish a provincial Ombudsman office.—PPI
