PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Right to Information (RTI) Commission on Tuesday launched its web portal, which would enable people seeking information from government departments to submit their questions electronically.

The portal has been developed by the KP Department of Science and Information Technology. The launch took place at the information department’s media centre and KP Information Minister Mushtaq Ahmed Ghani opened the website.

Speaking on the occasion and later talking to mediapersons, Mr Ghani said that the departments currently exempted from the law would also be brought under its ambit. He said that they had formed a committee to examine proposed amendments to the law to make it more fruitful.

Mr Ghani said that the committee would propose amendments to the law. He claimed that the RTI law was a landmark achievement of the incumbent government. He said that Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf-led government was the first to open itself to the general public as taxpayers and voters had the right to know what their governments were up to. He said that the RTI law would help in keeping tab on corruption in the government.

KP’s Chief Information Commissioner Sahibzada Mohammad Khalid said on the occasion that the law had necessitated bureaucrats to work harder, while their successors were likely to face tough time due to this law.

Zafar Ali Shah, secretary science and information technology, claimed that the RTI law was a big achievement of the present government. He said that the law had brought more openness to the governance and made files buried in government records accessible to public. He said that his department was working on many IT-related initiatives, including revenue reforms, grievance redressal mechanism, citizen gateway, e-office initiative and online admission for schools and colleges. Project coordinator Akif Khan briefed the audience about the new portal.

Published in Dawn, September 30th , 2015

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