PESHAWAR, Aug 7: The Consumer Rights Commission of Pakistan has urged the government to repeal the Official Secret Act, 1923, and make legislation regarding freedom of information to check corruption at the official level.

"It is important to make laws that could ensure excess of the citizens to information regarding execution of various projects, contracts allotted by the government for development work and analysis done by the government about different consumer products," said Mukhtar Ahmad Ali, coordinator of the Consumer Rights Commission of Pakistan (CRCP).

He was speaking at the "Guest Hour" programme of the Peshawar Press Club here on Saturday.

Mr Ali said that the Freedom of Information Ordinance, 2002, should be properly implemented after incorporating some amendments to it.

He said that the fee for getting information be slashed from Rs50 to Rs10 to enable the poor people to get information. The Freedom of Information Rules notified on June 18, 2002, also required amendments to facilitate its implementation and curb corruption, he added.

The CRCP came into being in 1998, with a view to campaign for much-needed legislation and ensure the rights of the consumers, he said, adding that so far the organization has successfully unearthed the laboratory reports of the bottled water being marketed in Pakistan by different companies.

"A report concerning bottled water has found that 58 per cent of them are unfit for human consumption. The report was published after aggressive campaign by the CRCP," he claimed.

Citing another report, he said that 80 per cent of the cooking oil in the market caused soar throat, liver and body joints problems. There are countless stances where the laboratory reports of the products were not published, which put at risk the human lives, he added.

Mr Ali lamented that despite the presence of laws aiming at protection of the consumers, they were not implemented. Consumer Right Protection Act, 1995, at the federal level and a similar act passed by the NWFP Assembly in 1997 had not been implemented, he said.

No laws on freedom of information existed in any province, which had kept aloof the people from information regarding the daily commodities, he said.