ISLAMABAD: Prime Min­ister Imran Khan has directed the authorities concerned to reopen 238,098 of the 1.5 million complaints lodged with Pakistan Citi­zen’s Portal (PCP) aga­inst various government departments and institutions last year.

The prime minister took the decision after receiving negative feedback from these complainants who were not satisfied with the relief granted to them or those who had received a partial relief.

In a letter, which was officially shared with the media, the PM directed the respective authorities to hold a review of the cases under their supervision for disposal on merit.

According to the letter from the PM Office, Mr Khan “directed the federal secretaries, provincial chi­ef secretaries and IGPs (ins­pectors-general of police) to hold exclusive meetings with the heads of the dep­art­ments/attached depart­ments/divisional commissioners/RPOs, etc and assign the respective caseload of complaints being reopened with specific instructions to review the same in their supervision for disposal on merit”.

The letter mentioned that out of the 238,098 cases, there were 114,916 cases that had been shown closed with the remarks that the complainants had been provided complete relief, whereas the citizens had denied the same by posting negative feedback. In the remaining 123,182 cases, the complainants claimed they had received only partial relief.

“The purpose of the review should not be merely increasing positive feedback rather, actual disposal of issues/complaints while strictly adhering to the merit/rules and regulations,” stated the PM Office letter.

The PM issued the directive that responsibility in the case of each organization, department or formation should be entrusted to a senior officer to supervise the review activity at all levels.

Area-wise cases

The PM Office further said that 107,000 of the cases being reopened were related to the federal departments, 80,000 to the Punjab province, 27,000 to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 15,000 to Sindh, 3,000 to Balochistan, 11,00 to Azad Jammu and Kashmir and 400 to Gilgit-Baltistan which would be subjected to further review.

Complaints or concerns shared by the citizens were mostly related to municipal services, power, gas, communication and education sectors.

Since its launch in 2018, the PCP has registered over 3.7 million people, with the total number of complaints received on it having crossed the four million mark.

According to the Prime Minister’s Performance Delivery Unit (PMPDU), which runs the portal, 45 per cent citizens have expressed their satisfaction over the performance of the portal.

The PMPDU stated that of 4.4 million complaints registered with the portal, 215,000 were lodged by overseas Pakistanis and the remaining 4.2 million were received from across the country. The PMPDU also claimed that four million complaints had already been addressed.

In all, 2.2 million people from Punjab, 600,000 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 500,000 from Sindh, 51,000 from Balochistan and 77,000 from Islamabad Capital Territory have registered themselves with the portal so far.

According to Mr Khan, the PCP app that the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) government launched in October 2018 was declared the second best government mobile application at the World Government Summit held in Dubai in February 2019. Indonesia topped the list whereas the US bagged the third position among the 4,646 mobile applications of different categories submitted by 87 countries at the summit.

The PMPDU also stated a dedicated category of corruption/malpractice in the already existing categories in the portal’s complaint-lodging mechanism to eradicate corruption and improve performance of bureaucracy.

The category of ‘corruption/malpractices’ has been further classified into six sub-categories. They are: financial corruption, violation of merit/rules, power abuse, fraud/forgery, harassment and inefficiency.

Published in Dawn, February 13th, 2022