Govt to use technology to improve public service, says minister

LAHORE: Provincial Minister for Schools Education Dr Murad Raas Thursday said that the present government was committed to openness and the people’s right to know and would make use of technology to make processes more transparent and the government more accountable.

Chairing a workshop on ‘Showcasing Achievements of Punjab Public Management Reform Programme’ jointly organised by Punjab Resource Management Programme (PRMP) Planning and Development Board in collaboration with the World Bank, he stressed on the fact that the three basic pillars needed for any government to work and progress are transparency, accountability and service delivery.

Punjab Planning and Development Chairman Habib-ur-Rehman Gilani, PITB Chairman Azfar Manzoor, senior representatives of World Bank Ismaila Ceesay, Global Practice Manager Governance, Clelia Rontiyanni Task Team Leader WB, CEO Urban Unit Khalid Sher Dil, P&D Project Implementation Unit Ali Jalal, Member Education P&D Khalid Sultan, Member Energy P&D Sadaqat Hussain, Dr Shahid Adil Additional Secretary P&D, provisional administrative secretaries, senior officers from other provinces, stakeholders, relevant officials and media representatives attended the workshop.

Opening the forum, Habib-ur-Rehman Gilani said the real beneficiaries of any public sector intervention are the people and their right to have a government that they can hold accountable. The Punjab government with the new leadership is keen to address the concerns of the people regarding transparency of government processes and is keen to take forward key reforms in the area and improve it.

World Bank representatives, Ismaila Ceesay, Global Practice Manager Governance and Task Team Leader of WB Clelia Rontoyanni expressed that the government’s commitment to efficient and effective service delivery through governance reforms will enable the people of the province to lead better lives. The World Bank representatives thanked the government in their commitment to reforms in governance and welcomed future support for any such interventions. In the workshop, different departments of the Punjab government gave presentations on the key interventions that came under the Punjab Public Management Reform Programme. The key achievements included 84 organisations publishing updated institutional information on their website, eight departments with automated record system for defined disclosed information; information about 68 key services available to the public through the Citizen Contact Centre (CCC), 2.9 million inquiries/comments received by the citizen contact centres to seek information about, or to provide feedback on key services, 14 services accepting online applications, 15 services using online processing, 10 services accepting mobile payments, 149 functional facilitation centres, 393 centres using the public-private partnership model, 216 district services monitored through smart management tools, 36 functional digital property registry across Punjab, 155, 594 properties added to the property registry, PKR1.004 billion urban property tax collection, 153 organisations using PPRA MIS for targeted contracts.

Training: A two-day training workshop for prosecutors under the auspices of United Nations office on drugs and crime concludes here on Thursday. Public prosecutors from all over the province participated in the workshop. The aim of the training was to enlighten the prosecutors about the application and interpretation of newly-enacted law on trafficking. Among other officers, Muhammad Maqsood Ahmed, Additional Secretary Prosecution and Sheikh Salman Nadeem, National Researcher, Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling Unit attended the training.