KARACHI:
While for the last 50 years, the Punjab Assembly could not pass a law on defining 18 years as the minimum age for marriage of girls, it made no such mistake in hastily passing a needless and destructive amendment to the Punjab Right to Information (RTI) law. The amendment enables the Information Commissioners to receive an extension of three years after completion of their original three-year term. The amendment provides a huge opportunity for Information Commissioners to adopt a compromising and obsequious approach, soft-peddle their decisions and please the government departments by not insisting on provision of information.
To rephrase poet Ahmed Fraz’s famous verse, the ‘extension’ amendment reduces the Honorable Information Commissioners to be perceived as: Commission muazzizeen halaf uthanay ko, Misaal-e-saa’il-e-mubram nishista rah men hen.
For a three-year term, an Information Commissioner costs about Rs18 million to the tax payer. Sadly in some provinces, in their entire three-year term, they have not made a penny’s contribution towards the cause of RTI. They would soon join the ‘extension’ rat race, only to become a still greater burden. All that is needed is a law passed by each assembly that dangles a carrot (potential extension) in exchange for mutual favours. RTI and the people of Pakistan would be the only losers.
We call upon all Information Ministries to introduce laws to hold Information Commissions more accountable; to introduce a selection (rather than nomination) process for appointment of Commissioners; and to ensure that this honourable institution is not destroyed by a tradition of ‘extensions’.
Naeem Sadiq
Karachi
Published in The Express Tribune, March 25th, 2021.
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