KP govt urged to extend RTI Act to PATA

Daily Times‎: Peshawar: Tuesday, December 06, 2016.

The ProgNat Development Initiative (PDI) has urged the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) government to extend Right to Information Act (RTI) to Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (PATA) aimed to accelerate process of good governance and eradicate corruption from government institutions.

PDI, a social development firm working on youth development and citizen journalism social enterprise in KP has launched a novel initiative to endorse the idea of RTI extension to PATA. The firm submitted an online petition on social media seeking the public support for endorsing the idea.

Currently, PATA represents 27 elected members in the KP provincial assembly but under the Article 147 (3) of the constitution the government the Governor KP has not extends the RTI act to PATA.

"In order to improve governance, reduce corruption and make institutions accountable, we urge the President of Pakistan and the Governor of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to extend KP RTI Act 2013 to PATA on a priority basis and provide an opportunity to the citizens of PATA to meaningfully partner in the democratic process by improving their involvement and contribution in public affairs," the petition read.

The petition was submitted on 30th November 2016, consider one of the unique of its kind in the KP where the firm using the platform of social media trying its best to approach high-ups government authorities for the right of marginalizes section of the region.

Talking to Daily Times Noor-ul-Islam, Co-founder of PDI said that the aim of the petition was an attempt to aware public and compels the government to fill the legal space causing region basic rights and accelerate the demands for the constitutionally guaranteed.

He said we struggle to extent the wing of the RTI to PATA for large the interest of public and society which had suffered hardship during the last decades.

"We have limited resources to start a wide campaign in the province for the purpose and we planed to access to public through the medium of social media to endorse our idea with us and accelerate the demand for the right of civilian living in PATA," Noor maintained.

The statement of petition said that Article 19-A of the Constitution of Pakistan guarantees every citizen the right to have access to information in all matters of public importance.