RTI law: A tool for good governance and transparency 

News Desk

The Right to Information is a basic right of every citizen. 

Therefore, the purpose of introducing RTI Act in KP was to provide much needed information to the citizens, coping with corruption and establishment of good governance in the province, said KP-RTI Chief Information Commissioner Sajid Khan Jadoon on Tuesday.

The Chief Commissioner said that the RTI Act, would enable citizens to get information about the government departmental and project expenditures. They would be able to do this through submitting an application to the department concerned that would be required to provide the requested information to the applicant.

Talking to the media at the Divisional Headquarters Abbottabad, the Chief Commissioner said that people had no access to information prior to 2013 and no action in this regard was taken by the government authorities.

He said that access to public interest information for a common man was not an easy task. After the introduction of RTI Act, he said a visible and positive change was witnessed in the performance of public institutions.

The establishment of ‘appellate courts’ is very important,  not only that the burden on the Commission would ease but also the precious time and money of the complainants would  be saved and people would get required information at their doorstep.

Jadoon said that such appellate courts would start working in other divisions of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the near future.

The RTI Act would bind the government functionaries to log and document information and make this available when requested.

The chief commissioner said proper training has been provided to the officials concerned which would help them to comply with requests for information from the public under the Act. Since November 2013, around 22,647 applications have been received and decisions on 8016 such applications have been made.