Forward Movement on Federal and Sindh RTI Bills announced at National Seminar on RTI

Government constitutes new Committee to re-evaluate purview

of Federal RTI Bill 2014 in light of changing security dynamic.”

Mr. Nasir Jamal, Director General, Internal

of Information Commission under the new Sindh RTI Bill will

help combat corruption within the province”. Mrs.

Zeenat Jahan, Director Information, Information

January 15: Speakers at today’s National Seminar on

the State of Right to Information Legislation and Implementation

in Pakistan unveiled the steps being taken by the Provincial

and Federal Governments for enacting modern RTI legislation

Nasir Jamal, Director General, Internal Publicity

Wing, Federal Ministry of Information Broadcasting and National

Heritage stated that the Government of Pakistan has constituted

a special committee including senior parliamentarians such

as Mr. Pervaiz Rashid, Mr. Ahsan Iqbal, Ms. Anusha Rahaman

Khan, Mr. Irfan Siddiqui and Ms. Marriyum Aurangzeb to formulate

recommendations on the Right to Information Bill 2014. The

Committee has been tasked with re-evaluating whether issues

such as National Security, Foreign Relations and Law Enforcement

are sufficiently protected under the draft law, given the

changing security situation. The Committee is expected to

have its first meeting within the next week. Mr. Jamal said

the Committee would invite feedback and input from relevant

stakeholders including civil society organizations such as

the first time in public Ms. Zeenat Jahan,

Director Information, Information and Archives Department,

Government of Sindh, read out clauses of the Sindh Right to

Information Bill 2015, pertaining to whistleblower protection

and the powers and composition of the Sindh Information Commission.

The responsibilities of the Sindh Information Commission have

been drafted in line with the powers and responsibilities

of the Information Commissions in Punjab and KP. She said

that the Bill has been vetted by the Law Department and is

ready to be tabled in in the Provincial Assembly of Sindh.

at the event also centered on issues of cooperation and coordination

between RTI implantation agencies and the provincial bureaucracies.

Chief Information Commissioner, Punjab Information Commission

(PIC), Mr. Mazhar Hussain Minhas, said that

the Punjab Transparency and Right to Information Act 2013,

has not been fully owned in influential quarters of the Punjab

government, including the Services and General Administration

Department, which has yet to approve appointments of officials

to the Commission against 43 sanctioned positions in its budget.

These delays have resulted in the PIC resorting to non-governmental

funding to deal with the rising amount of RTI complaints being

received.  Representing the Punjab Chief Minister’s

Secretariat, Dr. Riaz Mahmood, Director,

Law Department, mentioned that true implementation of the

law will take time; the Law department has taken steps to

ensure that the PTRTIA as well as other departmental laws

and regulations are being proactively disclosed on the Punjab

Shehryar Memon, Deputy Secretary, Reform and Implementation

Cell, Chief Secretary Office, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa shared that

the Independent Monitoring Unit of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Government has been proactively disclosing the performance

of developmental project in KP. He and Professor Kalim

Ullah, Information Commissioner, KP RTI Commission

agreed that the possibility of an additional allowance for

those officers fulfilling the role of PIOs or including these

duties in the job description of Assistant Commissioners to

from the Balochistan Department of Information and the Chief

Minister’s Secretariat were of the opinion that the

existing FOI in Balochistan is sufficient to guarantee citizen’s

access to information within the current political climate.

Mr. Abdul Latif, Director DGPR, said that

rather than drafting a new law for RTI in Balochistan, the

Seminar on Right to Information Legislation and its Implementation

was organised by PILDAT under the More effective Right-To-Information

(RTI) at Federal and Provincial level (Sindh and Punjab) Project,

for which PILDAT has received financial support from Development

Alternative Inc. (DAI) under the Enhanced Democratic Accountability

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