Information, upon request

EDITORIAL: When the best-performing provincial government in a national assessment complies with only 59 percent of its proactive disclosure obligations, there is little cause for congratulations.

Transparency International Pakistan’s review of 98 key ministries and government departments found Punjab leading the country at that distinctly unimpressive level, followed by the federal government at 47 percent, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa at 41 percent, Sindh at 31 percent and Balochistan at just 28 percent. These figures expose a basic failure to implement right to information laws that governments themselves are legally bound to observe.

This is unacceptable because access to information is far more than an administrative courtesy. Article 19A of the Constitution gives every citizen the right to have access to information in matters of public importance, subject to regulation and reasonable restrictions imposed by law.

Federal and provincial RTI legislation was supposed to turn that constitutional guarantee into a functioning system. Yet the latest assessment suggests that many government departments continue to behave as though disclosure remains optional, with citizens expected to search for information that should already be publicly available.

The weakness is particularly disturbing where public money is concerned. TIP found budget and expenditure information among the poorest areas of disclosure across jurisdictions. There can be few more basic requirements of democratic accountability than allowing taxpayers to see how public institutions are funded and how that money is spent.

Withholding or inadequately publishing such information weakens scrutiny by citizens, journalists and civil society and creates precisely the opacity in which waste, favouritism and corruption can flourish.

Even the machinery through which citizens are supposed to request missing information is inadequately visible. Public Information Officers are the designated institutional contact for RTI requests, yet publication of their contact details scored only 12 percent in Balochistan, 14 percent in Sindh, 36 percent at the federal level and 45 percent in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Punjab performed substantially better at 72 percent, but even that leaves a sizeable compliance gap. A right becomes considerably less useful when citizens are forced to begin by discovering whom they are supposed to approach to exercise it.

The problem therefore appears to lie less in the absence of legislation than in the familiar Pakistani gap between law and implementation. Governments have enacted RTI laws, established information commissions and designated officials, but too many departments apparently remain resistant to the culture of disclosure these measures were intended to create. That resistance must be addressed institutionally. Information commissions need the authority and administrative capacity to enforce compliance, while departments should face regular monitoring against clearly defined disclosure requirements.

TIP’s recommendations provide a sensible starting point. Standardised disclosure formats, mandatory publication of PIO contact details, dedicated RTI sections on departmental websites and better disclosure of budgets, expenditure and decision-making processes would remove much of the inconsistency.

Training PIOs is equally important, but senior officials must ultimately be held responsible when their departments repeatedly fail to publish information required by law. Otherwise, poor compliance becomes another bureaucratic habit without consequence.

A democratic government requires citizens to know what is being done in their name and with their money. Pakistan has already recognised that principle constitutionally and legislatively. The unfinished task is making its governments behave accordingly.

After all, a constitutional right to information loses much of its charm when government keeps forgetting to provide the information.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2026