ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi on Tuesday called for revisiting the laws governing the federal ombudsman to provide speedy and free of cost justice to the citizens especially expatriates against maladministration of government organisations.

“Create a special cell to redress the grievances and rectify injustices done to expatriates through the maladministration of government agencies,” the president said during a briefing on the role of ‘Wafaqi Mohtasib’ given by Federal Ombudsman Syed Tahir Shahbaz at the Ombudsman Secretariat.

The meeting was attended by acting Secretary Wafaqi Mohtasib Aftab Akbar Durrani, consultant (legal affairs) President’s Secretariat, retired Justice Sayed Zahid Hussain and senior advisers to the ombudsman.

The president emphasised the need for further enhancing the outreach of the ombudsman to remote areas of the country to provide speedy and free of cost justice to the aggrieved persons at their doorsteps against administrative injustices.

He underlined the need to use the alternative dispute resolution system for the provision of speedy, less expensive and hassle-free justice to the people.

President Alvi advised the ombudsman to create awareness among the people about the role of the institution in dispensing speedy and free of cost administrative justice.

The president also underscored the need to digitally integrate the Wafaqi Mohtasib Secretariat with the President’s Secretariat which would greatly help in the quick disposal of representations and public complaints as well as saving time and public money.

The ombudsman briefed the president about the achievements of his organisation during his tenure.

He said Wafaqi Mohtasib had witnessed a considerable increase in the number of complaints due to its role in provision of justice and a public awareness campaign through media and awareness seminars.

He said Wafaqi Mohtasib had received 133,251 complaints during 2020 compared to 73,059 in 2019.

He said the implementation rate of the federal ombudsman’s decisions was 99.6pc during the year 2020.

He said the organisation had disposed of 130,112 complaints in 2020 against 74,892 in 2019, an increase of 74pc.In order to help address the complaints belonging to remote areas, new regional offices had been established in Abbottabad and Kharan, he added.

Mr Shahbaz said the number of online complaints had increased seven times and reached 77,930 in the year 2020 from 11,289 in 2019.

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2021