ISLAMABAD: Of all the complaints received by the federal ombudsman in the past three years, over 55 per cent are against power distribution companies and distributors of Sui gas.

An official of the office said that as many as 340,000 complaints were received at the federal ombudsman office, adding that the number of annual complaints increased from 16,500 per year to over 110,000 per year in three years.

“Out of those complaints 159,153 were against Discos, 31,205 were against Sui gas distributors, 18,205 complaints were filed against the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) and 8,000 complaints were received against the Allama Iqbal Open University,” he said.

“Four years ago, the office used to receive 15,500 cases per year. Due to the long list of pending cases it was decided to resolve the cases without any delay,” he said, adding that a large number of people started filing complaints as a result of receiving an early response. “Now we get over 110,000 complaints per year,” he added.

Federal Ombudsman Salman Faruqui introduced a complaint redress mechanism last week in 181 federal ministries and agencies to nominate a grievance liaison officer in each department who will be responsible for resolving complaints within 15 days.

“The idea behind launching the mechanism was to install an in-house system to improve the governance status of departments since accountability in public administration institutions is an integral part of a democratic system,” he said.

Published in Dawn November 29th, 2016