THE operation of the country’s Right to Information (RTI) Act is awfully sluggish, but it sometimes coughs up useful, actionable information. Extremely patient citizens can extract data using the RTI Act and turn it over to powerful govern- ment officials.

This was demonstrated recently when after badgering by a concerned citizen, the Punjab Ombudsman’s office revealed a startling fact. Hold your breath: the Punjab government has purchased 12 mobile phones (five Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra and seven Apple iPhone 15 Pro Max), for a mindboggling sum of over Rs7 million in May 2024. That is roughly Rs600,000 per gadget.

Some small section of the government can quietly order things like this without the Finance Department immediately noticing it. To highlight the data, I emailed it to the finance secretary of the govern- ment, with the request to inform the finance minister and the chief minister of the province.

I would like to believe that all other relevant officials would also become aware that even in these austere times, some greying bureaucrats need these overly-complicated phones to carry out the government’s business.

Without a great deal of help from their assistants, a few, if any, will be able to use more than 10 per cent of the features on these sophisticated devices.

Will the Punjab chief minister or some other senior official step in to stop this waste and create a good example for other provinces and the federal government?

Q. Isa Daudpota Islamabad

Published in Dawn, September 9th, 2024