PESHAWAR
Chief Information Commissioner, Right To Information (RTI), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sajid Khan Jadoon on Tuesday said the basic purpose of introducing RTI Act was to provide needed information to citizens, coping with corruption and establishment of good governance in the province.
Talking to the media after inaugurating the first appellant forum of KP Information Commission at Divisional Headquarters Abbottabad, he said people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had no access to information prior to 2013 and government organizations took no action towards this end. He said access to public interest information for a common man was not an easy task.
After the introduction of RTI Act, he said a visible and positive change was witnessed in the performance of public institutions. With the establishment of appellate courts, he added, not only the burden on the commission would ease but the precious time and money of the complainants would also be saved and people would get required information at their doorstep.
Jadoon said such appellate courts would start working in other divisions of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in near future. This Act would bind the government functionaries to save all the information and documents in a legal way and provide the same when required.
He said proper training has been provided to the officials concerned with which information would be provided to the public under this Act.
Since November 2013, around 22647 applications have been received and decisions on 8016 such applications have been made.
According to the RTI Act, he said any citizen could get information about the government expenditures on any project through submitting an application adding the department concerned would definitely provide the information to the applicant.
Later, Chief Information Commissioner, Right To Information (RTI), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sajid Khan Jadoon inaugurated the first appellant forum of KP Information Commission at Divisional Headquarters Abbottabad.
President Abbottabad Press Club Naveed Alam, General Secretary Sardar Shafiq, President Abbottabad Union of Journalists Raja Haroon and officials of Regional Information Office were also present on the occasion.
