KARACHI: The office of Federal Ombudsman (FO) is running a pilot project in Dera Ghazi Khan to provide relief to people who earlier had to go to Multan for putting up their cases and complaints, Federal Ombudsman Salman Faruqui said.

During a visit to the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) on Wednesday, he said presently there were ombudsman offices in 28 districts only but the FO was keen on reaching people at district and union council level.

Mr Faruqui said that when he took over the charge of Ombudsman office there were around 75,000 pending cases which now stood at zero.

Federal Ombudsman receives approximately 16,500 cases per annum and decides each case in 45 days, instead of the officially mandated 60-day period, he said adding the office gave decisions on around 207,000 cases with only 7,000 going for appeal.

“Around 92 per cent of Ombudsman decisions are upheld by the Supreme Court. Up to 87pc of the decisions are based on mediation which is reached in a few days,” he said.

Businessmen at the FPCCI drew Mr Faruqui’s attention towards the huge outstanding amount against duty drawback, sales tax and local levies. Mr Faruqui urged the businessmen to approach Federal Tax Ombudsman Abdul Rauf Chaudhry in this regard.

Published in Dawn, February 4th, 2016