LAHORE: The provincial government seems to be in a ‘status quo mode’ regarding the provision of access to (official) information though it has legislated the Punjab Transparency and Right to Information Act over a month ago.

The government is yet to form Punjab Information Commission, which will frame rules and regulations for the working of public information officers (PIOs) to be designated /notified by each public entity.

The proposed three-member commission will comprise “a person who has been or is qualified to be a judge of the High Court; a person who is or has been in the service of Pakistan in basic scale 21 or equivalent; and a person from civil society having a degree based on 16 years of education from a recognised institution and experience of not less than 15 years in the field of mass communication, academic or right to information.”

Though the law does not set any deadlines for setting up the commission, its provision pertaining to PIOs says the officers are to be designated/ notified within 60 days of the commencement of the act.

The PIOs will be responsible for receiving applications for the provision of information and responding to the same within 14 days.

Neither any paperwork has so far been done nor a meeting held to proceed on since the right to information act was passed on Dec 12, 2013, senior officials in the information and law departments admit.

“We’d forgotten even the deadline (for PIOs) set in the law,” a senior official candidly admitted.

Both the PML-N and the PPP had promised in the much trumpeted Charter of Democracy back in 2006 to provide access to information as a right to the citizens and as a measure for ensuring good governance.

The N League gave a fig for the promise during its previous five-year term in Punjab government. However, the PPP legislated one for Sindh, although a copycat of the 2002 federal ordinance which many observers consider as “rubbish” framed overnight under a condition of an Asian Development Bank loan. Balochistan went along Sindh.

Both Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa kept assuring but failed to deliver on the subject.

Came the PTI in power in KP and took lead on Aug 13, 2013 by promulgating an ordinance on the issue, Punjab followed under pressure on Oct 4. The KP made the law on Oct 31, Punjab trailed along on Dec 12, in the words of Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives’ Zahid Abdullah, in a healthy competition.

The KP has reserved land for establishing secretariat of the commission and appointed its chief information commissioner but no move is being seen in Punjab in this respect.

Abdullah says the process will take around three months to complete if Punjab starts working on implementing the law today.

“It’s fairly a lengthy process. The government will first have to nominate information commissioners, then in consultation with the commission will frame its by-laws and the body will then decide rules for its internal working.”

He does not believe that Punjab will come into action in the absence of civil society pressure for unlike the KP law it did not set any deadlines for accomplishing the task.

His disbelief is not that much misplaced in a government that neither appointed a full-time information minister in its previous term nor it has felt the need this time also.