Daily Times

Despite the instruction and notice from the Punjab Information Commission, the city traffic police are reluctant to share the information regarding the revenue generated by the hoarding board located within their office.

The Punjab Transparency and Right to Information Act 2013 gives the right to every citizen of Pakistan to get information from any public body. Exercising the said law, a resident of Rawalpindi filed a Right to Information (RTI) request to City Traffic Police to provide the information regarding the revenue generated by the public body from the hoarding boards located within its building.

The information request was filed on February 20, 2019 despite the passage of almost four months the public body did not shared the information with the applicant.

In pursuance of the complaint filed by the citizen, the Punjab Information Commission had also issued a notice to the Chief Traffic Officer (CTO) of CTP-Rawalpindi with the direction to provide the requested information/documents to the citizen within 14 working days, but the CTO Rawalpindi did not even bother to pay attention of Punjab Information Commission’s notice.

The Punjab Transparency and Right to Information Act 2013, binds each public body to provide requisite public information/documents within 14 days of filing of an application to the concerned office.

Moreover, the commission may also impose a penalty by forfeiting the salary of the concerned officer or impose fine u/s 15 in case of delay beyond 14 days caused without reasonable ground.

While talking with Daily Times, the applicant Ahmed said, that I was doubtful about the income of the hoarding boards and its utilization, as I came to know that there are some serious irregularities or alleged corruption in this matter, to cross-check the fact of the matter I have filed an RTI request but the public body is reluctant to share the requested information.

“The delay in sharing the information has strengthened my doubt”, he maintained.

According to a research titled “The Efficiency and Implementation of Right to Information Law in the Province of Punjab” conducted by the Sustainable Social Development Organization (SSDO), with low response rate of government departments towards information requests filed under Rights to Information (RTI) Law, the Law faces serious implementation challenges which require urgent government attention to strengthen RTI in public institutions and empower Punjab Information Commission.