Federal Ombudsman urges govt to reform prisons

Says the government has also been asked to formulate a pricing mechanism for medicines

FAISALABAD: Federal Ombudsman Salman Faruqui said on Friday that his office had submitted three reports to the government with recommendations on jail and police reforms and to establish a pricing formula for locally manufactured medicines.

Addressing the Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry, he said, “Our report on police reforms recommends that police stations be converted to facilitation centres. People should not be afraid to report their complaints.”

He said the report on jails had recommended that incarceration facilities should have rehabilitation centres which provided education and employment opportunities for inmates.

He said the United Nations had provided vaccine for measles after a report was furnished by his office. “We had compiled the report to underline the crisis caused by a shortage of the vaccine.”

“The United Nations has agreed to provide free measles vaccine for five years,” he said.

He said the sale of spurious drugs should be curbed. He also questioned the pricing of medicines by Pakistani pharmaceutical companies.

“When I took oath as ombudsman, there were 75,000 complaints requiring immediate attention.”

“We reduced the time it took to resolve these complaints from 60 days to 45 days in 2015. This year, we have evolved a mechanism to resolves complaints within 15 days.”

He said the government had decided to set up a passport office in any country with at least 10,000 Pakistanis on his recommendation.

He said the federal ombudsman decided an average of 80,000 complaints every year.

He said the federal ombudsman’s office aimed to settle complaints within 15 days.

He said one-window desks had been established at airports in Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Quetta, Peshawar, Faisalabad, Multan and Sialkot.

“We have recorded a substantial decline in complaints against airlines after setting up these desks at airports,” he said.

Earlier, the ombudsman inaugurated a facilitation desk at the Faisalabad International Airport to register complaints of overseas Pakistanis.

Grievance Commissioner for Overseas Pakistanis and Wafaqi Mohtasib Secretariat Registrar Hafiz Ahsan Ahmad Khokhar and Airport Manager Anwar Jamal were also present.

Speaking on the occasion, the federal ombudsman said the facilitation desks would help millions of overseas Pakistanis. He said his office had taken special initiatives for overseas Pakistanis and had established the Grievance Commissioner Cell for them.

He said several ministries had been taken on board to resolve problems faced by overseas Pakistanis. He said facilitation desks had already become functional at international airports in Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Peshawar, Quetta, Multan and Sialkot.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 16^th, 2016.