BR Research

PTI’s lip service to right to information

When the PTI was campaigning for elections, its manifesto promised that if the party comes to power it will “transfo
Published December 31, 2019

When the PTI was campaigning for elections, its manifesto promised that if the party comes to power it will “transform governance” by ensuring that the government delivers on the citizen right to Information. Yet almost a year and half since coming to power that promise remains unfulfilled.

Let’s take a quick look at what the PTI manifesto exactly said. Despite constitutional provisions being in effect, “access to information that needs to be made public is very difficult. This results in weak accountability and deepens the distrust between the citizen and the state,” adding that the party “will allocate resources and build public sector capacities to effectively implement Right to Information (RTI) laws”.

The reality, however, is quite contrary. In his recent interview with BR Research, Zahid Abdullah, federal information commissioner said that RTI commission, which has been working out of a single room, has not been given due resources to operate effectively and implement the law in letter and spirit.

Although the appointments of federal information commissioners were made in November 2018 (i.e. soon after the government was formed), the commissioners were working without basic support staff until September 2019, whereas the finance ministry has still not approved the posts sanctioned by cabinet. (See Brief Recording section Dec 30, 2019)

Zahid’s views echo the findings of a report published by Institute for Research, Advocacy and Development (Irada) in September this year.

Irada’s Annual Proactive Information Disclosure Status Report 2019 for the fiscal year ending June 2019 revealed that every single one of the 33 federal ministries failed to provide more than half of the minimum 39 categories of information on their website required under the proactive disclosure clause of the federal RTI law. The ministry that proactively disclosed the most was the Ministry of Finance; but it too met less than half of the disclosure requirements.

This is clearly shoddy performance. However, what is even more unfortunate is that unlike their outcry over ease of doing business, tax refunds and other aspects symptomatic of macro obsession, the business and the economy policy community doesn’t raise enough hue and cry over their right to information. Perhaps they do not realise the importance of getting information from the state and subjecting its acts and abstinence to public scrutiny, when in fact the effective implementation of the right of information is the very boon of democracy.

In that light, the biggest responsibility on the shoulders of information commissioners to create awareness of the RTI and how it can help both business and democracy.

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