KARACHI, June 19: The Sindh Governor, Dr Ishratul Ibad Khan, on Tuesday received the annual report of the Sindh ombudsman for 2006 at the Governor’s House.

Sindh Ombudsman Yousuf Jamal informed the governor that he had received 6,889 complaints during the year under review; 2,216 of these were admitted while the remainder could not be entertained as they pertained to the federal government agencies and to disputes of a civil nature and service matters. Some of the complaints were anonymous, while others were filed under pseudonyms.

The majority of the admitted cases pertained to the police department, local government department and the Karachi city district government (including the defunct KDA) and the KBCA.

The ombudsman also said that hundreds of complaints were received from retired government employees seeking the release of their held-up service dues and pensioners’ benefits. The grievances were expeditiously redressed.

In 2006, he said, more than 200 cases were decided under section 33 of the Ombudsman’s Act, which permits the resolution of disputes.

The governor was informed that to provide speedy justice to the aggrieved, special attention was being paid to two points in the context of the Grievance Redress Mechanism (GRM) of the ombudsman’s institution.

These are firstly, the reduction in the turn-around time, and secondly, expansion in the ombudsman’s outreach to make access to justice easier for the common man.

The governor expressed his appreciation over the performance of the ombudsman’s institution. Four new offices, as approved by the governor, are to be opened under the schedule of new expenditure for 2007-08. These are proposed to be located in Thatta, Mithi, Naushehro Feroze and Jacobabad.

Besides the ombudsman’s head office in Karachi, as many as nine regional offices are currently functional in Karachi Central, Karachi East, Hyderabad, Badin, Mirpurkhas, Nawabshah, Dadu, Larkana and Sukkur and a sub-office in Naushehro Feroze.

Mr Jamal also informed the governor that besides capacity-building conferences for officials of the institution, five public awareness seminars were held and many more were to be organised by the ombudsman in collaboration with the ADB-funded Access to Justice Programme.—PPI