ISLAMABAD: President Dr Arif Alvi has directed the federal ombudsman to expand the scope of the institution of ombudsman and provide free-of-cost justice to the public, especially the people of remote areas, against administrative injustices.

He underscored the need for introducing revolutionary changes into the institution of ombudsman through legislation to make it stronger and more effective to dispense speedy justice against the maladministration of government organisations.

The president made these remarks during a briefing on the role of Federal Ombudsman, given by Ejaz Ahmed Qureshi, the incumbent, at his secretariat on Tuesday.

The president stressed on exploring avenues to conduct the Alternate Dispute Reso­lution (ADR) mechanism in potential areas.

In order to promote good governance, the president underlined the need for increased interaction with those government departments which caused inconvenience to the people in order to facilitate them and provide better service delivery.

Appreciating the performance and role of the ombudsman, the president congratulated him and his team, saying that the institution was doing splendid work by providing free of cost justice to aggrieved persons. He asked the ombudsman to create awareness among the people through media to benefit from the services of the institution.

The federal ombudsman gave a presentation on the role and achievements of his organisation in providing free-of-cost justice to the aggrieved persons against administrative injustices. He highlighted that his institution had disposed of 106,732 complaints in 2021 against the receipt of 110,398 cases despite Covid-19 pandemic constraints. He said more than 42,000 online complaints had been processed during the year while more than 92.7 per cent of findings had been implemented in 2021. He said the amount involved in the complaints handled during the year was Rs1.85 billion.

The ombudsman shared his vision, saying that he is working on the geographic expansion of the institution to provide free-of-cost and speedy justice at the district and sub-district level.

Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2022