EDITORIAL: In deference to Article 19-A of the Constitution that guarantees every citizen the right to information (RTI) in all matters of public importance, federal and provincial governments have enacted supplementary laws. But compliance is another story.
There have been several instances of civil society members’ queries being dismissed by the authorities concerned on one pretext or the other. That was bad enough. Various federal ministries and departments also don’t care much about fulfilling their obligations under Section 5 of the RTI Act that only requires them to publish such basic information as their functions, regulations, notifications, policies, and audit reports among other things, reveals a civil society organisation, Free and Fair Elections Network (Fafen), in a recent assessment report.
According to the report, out of 40 divisions’ websites monitored not a single one was found to have fully conformed to Section 5 of the RTI law. The Cabinet Division and Inter-Provincial Coordination Division had the highest compliance rate of 42 percent.
For other divisions and departments it was a downward slide from 40 percent to 35 percent, 31 percent, 19 percent, 15 percent, and 9 percent. They obviously did not consider worth their while to keep the people informed, or had little to show them by way of decent performance.
But the feedback was not any better when Fafen directly approached 33 federal ministries with information requests. Only 19 of them responded. Nine ministries, among them those of Climate Change, Commerce and Defence Production, provided the requested information within the stipulated timeframe; 10 others after the deadline.
The remaining 14, including the Ministries of Finance, Revenue, Interior, and Railways, gave no answer. It does not take long to figure out why they failed to reply to Fafen’s requests. Presumably, the first two ministries had wanted to avoid questions about issues causing financial hardships to the people, the third regarding its much controversial actions and policies, and the fourth one to hide its inefficiencies.
This amounts to negating the very idea of the people’s right to know, and allowing them to hold governments accountable for their acts of commission and omission.
RTI is premised on the principle that the people are the owners of information regarding all governance-related matters. It enables them to demand improvement of public services, elimination of corruption, and other wrongdoings – all reasons for governments’ resistance to almost every ask for information.
Which makes it all the more important to keep pressing the governments at the Centre and the provinces for maintaining transparency in their functions, policies, and financial affairs.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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