The News International: Islamabad: Tuesday,
March 14, 2017.
It has been a
long-standing demand of civil society groups and journalists that the Sindh
Freedom of Information Act 2006 should be repealed, as it has proven to be
largely ineffective in helping citizens exercise their constitutional right of
access to information held by Sindh public bodies.
It is a
welcome development that the Sindh government has finally repealed the Sindh
Freedom of Information Act 2006 and enacted Sindh Transparency and Right to Information
Bill 2016 into a law.
The Centre
for Peace and Development Initiatives, (CPDI) urges Sindh government to take
immediate steps to operationalize provisions of Sindh Transparency and Right to
Information Act. As reported in the media, the newly enacted Right to
Information Law envisages the establishment to ensure its implementation.
In this
connection, the CPDI urges the Sindh government to establish Sindh Information
Commission which has administrative as well as budgetary autonomy with enough
funds to carry out its functions as mentioned in the law.
Furthermore,
the Sindh government should constitute a Search Committee to find qualified and
well-reputed persons to be appointed as information commissioners to ensure
implementation of the newly enacted Sindh right to information law.
Enactment of
a right to information law is but one step in ensuring citizens access to
information held by public bodies. The Sindh RTI law will only be beneficial if
the Sindh government establishes Sindh Information Commission without delay and
provides continued support to the commission in carrying out its obligations
i.e. developing transparency standards for public bodies, timely disposal of
complaints, ensuring proactive disclosure of information, developing schedule
of fees, creating mass awareness about rights of people under the law, compiling
guidelines for and imparting trainings to Public Information Officers (PIOs),
developing monitoring mechanism to monitor and report on the compliance by
public bodies, publishing its annual report and framing rules and regulations.