PESHAWAR: Federal Ombudsman Ejaz Ahmad Qureshi said here on Friday that the number of complaints received by his office was likely to touch the 190,000 by the end of current year.

Addressing the heads of federal government departments during his visit to Peshawar, Mr Qureshi said that this upsurge in registration of complaints was a true reflection of public trust and confidence in the institution.

Giving the comparative analysis, he said in 2021, around 110,000 complaints were received while in 2022, the number rose to more than 164,000.

He added that in the year 2023, the secretariat so far received 102,520 complaints, while the number of disposed of cases had crossed 103,291.

Mr Qureshi said the implementation of Wafaqi Mohtasib’s decisions also remained very healthy and over 80pc of its decisions stood implemented.

He further said that the dispensation of speedy justice to the complainants required full cooperation of civil servants in the federal agencies.

Mr Qureshi reiterated that the Wafaqi Mohtasib Secretariat worked as a “poor man’s court”. “It acts as a source of providing relief to the downtrodden and oppressed complainants against administrative excesses and any acts of omission or commission committed by the federal agencies.”

The ombudsman said the informal resolution of disputes mechanism was being widely welcomed by the complainants from KP, as in practice the system was similar to jirga system, which had been in practice in their society for years.

Mr Qureshi called upon the regional heads of government agencies to depute focal persons to represent their departments during the hearing processes at the wafaqi mohtasib’s offices so that proper implementation was ensured and justice dispensed expeditiously

Published in Dawn, Aug 5th, 2023