ISLAMABAD, Feb 6: Acting Wafaqi Mohtasib M. Salman Faruqui has been elected Asian representative to the board of directors of the International Ombudsman Institute (IOI).

The voting was conducted through secret ballot held by the IOI’s general secretariat in Vienna, said a press release issued here on Wednesday.

Established in 1978, IOI is the only global organisation for the cooperation of more than 150 ombudsman institutions all over the world. The IOI is organised in regional chapters in Africa, Asia, Australasia and Pacific, Europe, Caribbean and Latin America and North America.

The role of ombudsmen is to protect people against violation of rights, abuse of power, error, negligence, unfair decisions and maladministration and to improve public administration while making the government’s actions more open and its administrations more accountable to the public.