Inaction over public complaints: Imran’s warning to 263 officers

ISLAMABAD: The government has issued show-cause notices and warning letters to officers for their non-serious attitude and inaction on public complaints registered with the Citizen Portal.

The action was initiated after Prime Minister Imran Khan, during a cabinet meeting, took notice of inefficiency of government officers, which was also narrated by the federal ministers.

According to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), the Punjab chief secretary had completed the scrutiny of 1,586 officers’ dashboards and a report of PM’s Delivery Unit was also submitted to the prime minister.

As per the report, 263 officers were issued warning letters and show-cause notices served on seven others.

Around 833 officers were directed to be careful in future and explanation was sought from 111 others. However, the performance of 403 officers was appreciated in the report.

Secretaries information, agriculture, excise and irrigation in Punjab had been written to improve their performance. Letters have been written to 20 deputy commissioners of Punjab, including Lahore, Gujrat and Sheikhupura. The show-cause notices have been issued to 43 assistant commissioners including those in Raiwind, Jhang, Burewala, Sadiqabad, Nankana Sahib and Pindi Gheb. Directing the officers to improve their performance, the PM Office said the purpose of issuing warning letters was to caution the officers concerned.

“All out steps are being taken to extend facilities to the people as per the prime minister’s vision,” the PM Office added.

According to PMDU, more than 50 briefing sessions for responsible officers were arranged and user guidelines were issued time to time. However, the preliminary report revealed that complaints were neither handled according to the laid clown instructions of the Manual nor decided at an appropriate level.

The report pointed out that the quality of response to the citizens showed that the system was left in the hands of lower subordinates and they made majority of decisions.

It identified that many resolved complaints were lacking letter/notification/picture; complaints were dropped on wrong pleas; many were decided at an unauthorized level and unnecessary time wasted in submission of just a response to the citizen.

Absence of any cogent reason for no relief, assertion of relief or partial relief in contrast to actual situation and no reopening of complaints with negative feedback was also highlighted in the report.

The PMDU had asked the chief secretaries and IGPs to initially conduct performance evaluation of the targeted officers’ dashboards by constituting a dedicated committee under the chairmanship of an officer not below BPS-20.

They were asked to conduct performance evaluation of the assigned officers’ dashboard, identify loopholes and officers responsible for the poor as well as best performance.