KARACHI: The Right of Access to Information Act provides citizens opportunities to get information from the government without any cost. Under this act citizens can submit an application to get information from public bodies/government departments even on a plain paper and the government officials are bound to provide the needed information within 10 working days. In case the citizens are unable to get the requested information, they can file an appeal to the Pakistan Information Commission.

This was stated by Mohammad Azam, the chief information commissioner, Pakistan Information Commission, while speaking at a press conference at the Karachi Press Club on Monday.

He said the present PTI government had formed this commission as one of the major “achievements” of its first 100 days.

The three-member commission was notified in November 2018 and it started working immediately and had received more than 240 appeals. In more than 100 cases the citizens have been provided requisite information on the Information Commission’s intervention.

Explaining further, Mr Azam said that citizens could ask the government how public sector development funds were utilised for welfare of the people. They could also ask questions about the standards of the development projects in case they had doubts about the quality of work.

Zahid Abdullah and Fawad Malik, commissioners of the Pakistan Information Commission, explained that the Right of Access to Information Act was passed by parliament as a legal requirement of Article 19-A of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

They explained that this act provided citizens with an instrument to get their fundamental rights.

Now the citizens can ask the government how the departments are performing various tasks with the funds collected from them in tax.

Published in Dawn, January 7th, 2020