ISLAMABAD: The Prime Minister’s Performance Delivery Unit (PDU) has added a category of corruption/malpractice to the Pakistan Citizens’ Portal (PCP) complaint lodging mechanism to eradicate corruption and improve the performance of bureaucracy.

According to the Prime Minister Office, the category of “corruption/malpractices” has been further classified into six sub-categories — financial corruption, violation of merit/rules, power abuse, fraud/forgery, harassment and inefficiency.

The PM Office press release said that harassment, having become one of the gravest challenges, was a pertinent sub-category of the Pakistan Citizens’ Portal, where any issue regarding physical/sexual harassment, threatening and blackmailing will be put under this head.

The classification of these various sub-categories has been keenly devised keeping in view the nature of complaints received on the portal. Matters regarding corruption in government funds, bribery and kickbacks fall under the financial corruption, whereas irregularities in recruitment, procurement and allotment processes comprise violation of merit/rules category.

Corruption, violation of merit, power abuse, fraud, harassment and efficiency are new to list of grievances

Similarly, favouritism, unauthorised privileges, etc, represent power abuse section.

It said the primary objective of the PM’s PDU [that was formed on the directives of Prime Minister Imran Khan to address public complaints] was to provide a coherent and efficient system to redress public grievances and take necessary steps in this light.

The activation of the “corruption/malpractices” option will not only help filter out frivolous complaints, but also help officers entertain only genuine complaints.

Likewise, any complaint registered against fake documents and impersonation will be listed under fraud/mockery section. Finally, cases of absenteeism, red tape and non-serious attitude will constitute as inefficiency.

“The PM’s PDU has categorised its compliant mechanism to facilitate public, as well as to safeguard the integrity and reputation of individuals, as a majority of reported cases received through the citizens’ portal represented mala fide and irrational content for the purposes of achieving personal desired outcomes,” it added.

Moreover, the step will also enable the dashboard handlers/officers to systematically take up or drop [irrelevant] matters, and hence will accelerate the process of complaints’ redressal.

It has been further decided that lodging of complaints in the category of “corruption/malpractices” by citizens will be subject to some pre-defined system alerts of do’s and don’ts, which will be made part of the “User’s Guidelines Manual for Complaints and Suggestions Handling”, along with other changes and will be circulated to all departments concerned.

“As part of the above mentioned dos and don’ts, any complaint which does not provide authentic evidence will not be entertained; furthermore, it has been prescribed to refrain from making complaints carrying baseless allegations as it is mentioned in the Holy Quran that whosoever accuses an innocent, indeed takes upon himself the burden of a calumny and a manifest sin,” the press release said.

In addition to this, penal clauses will be highlighted through pop-up messages for those complainants whose complaints prove to jeopardise the reputation and integrity of other individuals, or will be found groundless.

Published in Dawn, February 7th, 2020