KARACHI : Federal Ombudsman of Pakistan Ejaz Ahmed Qureshi, on Tuesday, called for improving coordination with concerned government departments and courts to further strengthening complaint resolution mechanism.
He, while presiding over a meeting held here to review overall performance, issues being faced and other matters at Federal Ombudsman Regional Office Karachi, also stressed on the need of improving the mechanism of getting feedback from the complainants.
Ejaz Qureshi said that every complaint registered with the ombudsman secretariat was investigated efficiently and visible improvements had been brought in the entire process and now complaints were being resolved within a period of two months.
There were 5,400 complaints under process of investigation, hearing or implementation at the regional office, the ombudsman said and added that the significant number of public complaints was against K-Electric while people had also filed complaints in matters related to insurance, natural gas, NADRA, and many other government departments
He said that work of the ombudsman was focused at service of people and secretariat has services of highly trained and dedicated people available to serve the masses.
He said that due to mass awareness about role of ombudsman the number of registered complaints has significantly increased 76 percent during January and February 2023 which demonstrate enhanced trust of general public on federal ombudsman secretariat.
The Federal Ombudsman appreciated performance of Regional Office Karachi and said that despite considerable increase in workload at Karachi, working environment there was good, working relationship was ideal and every team members was taking interest in work.
Implementation on decisions was another important factor and ombudsman secretariat had attained remarkable success in the regard as well, he said and called for improving coordination with courts of law.
Ejaz Qureshi said that issues of funding had almost been resolved and the secretariat was considering utilisation of saved funds for providing honorarium to staff members as there were a number of workers working voluntarily without any salary.
The meeting considered various issues pertaining to further improvement of work of federal ombudsman including filling up of vacant posts, induction of more investigation officers, increase in salaries, provision of honorarium and coordination with different government departments and organisations.
Suggestions regarding liaison and working with security agencies were considered in the meeting while matter of internal audit of the institution was also came under discussion to ensure financial transparency.
Earlier, Senior Adviser Regional Office Karachi Syed Anwar Hyder briefed the meeting about performance of the regional office.
Later Ejaz Ahmed Qureshi, while talking to APP, informed that he had an important meeting with Chief Secretary Sindh, Secretary Home department and Inspector General of Prisons Sindh to review progress on Prison Reforms.
He informed that federal ombudsman had prepared a comprehensive report on situation of prisons and need of reforms and that report was submitted to Chief Justice of Pakistan. The CJ Supreme Court approved the report and forwarded it to all the provinces for implementation, he said and informed that the matter relating to fast track the implementation on the report and removing the constraints in the regard were reviewed in detail in the meeting.
He expressed satisfaction on progress made in Sindh and informed that Chief Secretary Sindh has assured to resolve certain issues and include projects of construction of new prisons and provision of necessary facilities to prisoners in annual budget of upcoming financial year.
The federal ombudsman further said that there were a considerable number of poor prisoners who could not get released from the prisons due to various reasons and they were facing health and other issues there.
