ISLAMABAD: Federal Ombudsman Ejaz Ahmad Qureshi said on Tuesday the ombudsman’s office has emerged as a truly poor man’s court, providing free and expeditious administrative relief to a large number of complainants at their doorstep.
“Outgoing year 2024 has been very eventful and productive for the Institution of Federal Ombudsman as it witnessed resolution of arecord number of 2,23,198 complaints, out of the total 2,26,372 applications it received, showing an increase of 17 per cent and 16 per cent in receipt and disposal of complaints, respectively, over the figures of 2023,” he said while informally talking to a group of senior journalists at the Federal Ombudsman Secretariat here.
Ombudsman Qureshi said during 2024 this office had been able to achieve an impressive implementation rate of 93.21 per cent of its decisions/findings as against 85.70 per cent in 2023.
According to him, during last year, 126 open Kutcheries were held across the country with a view to providing administrative justice at the doorstep of the people.
Besides, 171 outreach complaint resolution visits were carried out, which proved instrumental in resolving as many as 4840 cases.
Similarly, 79 inspection visits were conducted at different federal government agencies and departments in order to improve their service delivery. “With the opening of new regional offices and complaint collection centres, the outreach and accessibility has been increased remarkably covering 25 cities of the country including Muzaffarabad (AJK), Gilgit-Baltistan and Sahiwal. We shall soon be opening another regional office at DG Khan,” the federal ombudsman said. He said yet another important milestone has been the availability of IT and digital platforms for lodging the complaints and attending the hearing through zoom link and WhatsApp.
The federal ombudsman further said the office had emerged as a truly poor man’s court, providing free and expeditious administrative relief to a large number of complainants at their doorstep.
Referring to the steps undertaken for facilitating the overseas Pakistanis, he said a total of 151,897 complaints were received during 2024.
He said the one window facilitation desks set up at the international airports of the country entertained 111,184 complaints, whereas 38,592 complaints were received by the Pakistan missions abroad and 2,121 complaints by the office of Grievance Commissioner for Overseas Pakistanis established at Federal Ombudsman Secretariat.
Ombudsman Qureshi also informed that a number of steps have been undertaken for ameliorating the lot of children in the country, including appointment of a full-fledged Grievance Commissioner for Children, whose office is located at the Federal Ombudsman Secretariat.
Underscoring the need for raising the general awareness about the existence of this forum, the federal ombudsman stated that a well-planned public awareness campaign was producing the desired results and the general public was fast becoming aware of its existence. “This office has so far carried out 80 studies/reports to fix the systemic issues and problems being faced by various federal government agencies,” he said.
Touching on the international profile of the institution, the federal ombudsman said as President of the Asian Ombudsman Association (AOA), Pakistan was making efforts for upholding the cause of Ombudsmanship in the Asian Region and beyond.