Ombudsman summons officials over report of vehicles examination

ISLAMABAD: Finding the previous report regarding checking/examination of vehicles with regard to their environmental friendliness submitted by the authorities concerned as being unsatisfactory, Federal Ombudsman Ejaz Ahmad Qureshi has summoned the SSP (Traffic), deputy commissioner (ICT) and director general (Environment) on Thursday.

The Registrar, Federal Ombudsman Office, has issued notices to all the officials concerned in this connection. It may be recalled that while taking serious notice of the long queues of vehicles in the red zone of Islamabad and the resultant congestion and inconvenience to the general public, the federal ombudsman had called the officials concerned to his office on August 29. However, the officials who attended the hearing on August 29 submitted the initial report, which was found lacking in substance and clearly failed to answer the pertinent questions framed in this regard.

Consequently, the federal ombudsman, expressing his concern over the state of affairs, has directed the officials to positively attend the next hearing on September 4.

It may also be mentioned that the questionnaire submitted earlier specifically asked the authorities concerned as to why a sensitive place like the red zone in the federal capital was chosen for determining the environmental friendliness of the vehicles and whether any awareness campaign in the print and electronic media preceded this activity. Besides, the make and models of the vehicles were specified or not and whether any separate booth/counters established for women and senior citizens for this purpose.

According to the ombudsman’s office, in absence of the specific information, people were found languishing in long queues only to be told at the end of the day that initially vehicles up to 10 years old were being examined in the first phase.