Provincial Closing Convention of Citizens Voice Project – A USAID Project
Citizens demand for government officials to know about ‘Sindh freedom of Information Act 2006’ to access information.
The Strengthening Participatory Organization (SPO) Karachi organized “Project Closing Convention” in local hotel at Karachi with community based organizations, NGOs, government officials, media.and political party members of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Pakistan Muslim League- Nawaz (PML-N) and Pakistan Muslim League- Functional (PML-F from Karachi, Thatta and Badin. The project envisioned to build the capacity of the Politicians and Community Based Organizations (CBOs) in the field of Freedom of Information (FOI), District Budget Tracking and Advocacy& Lobbying for practicing Sindh Freedom of Information Act 2006. The event was supported under the one-year project titled “Enhancing Capacities for Transparent and Accountable Local Governance”under Citizen’s Voice Project (CVP) grant -07, funded by USAID for Districts of Malir, Thatta and Badin,aimed at sharing project key successes and lessons learnt.
Mr. Ellahi Bakhsh Baloch, Regional Head SPO Karachi, welcomed all guests and shared the objectives of closing convention. Mr. Baloch shared that the main objectives of the closing convention are: to share the achievements/ success stories with all stakeholders and to acknowledge the people and departments played their key role to ensure the availability of required information under FoI 2006.
Ms. Raheema Panhwar, Program Specialist SPO, shared that under this Project SPO identified and orientated 30 CBOs and 60 Politicians from PPP, PML-N & PML-F, as per given project milestone, conducted baseline assessment through Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with the target groups (CBOs) and politicians to demonstrate situational analysis of the perceptions, capacity gaps and understanding of the citizens and politicians on The Sindh Freedom of Information Act (FOI) 2006, District Budget Tracking and Advocacy and Lobbying.
In order to enhance the capacities of targeted communities, the training need assessment (TNA) exercise was conducted with the selected 30 CBOs and 60 politicians. The TNA was focused around the broad themes of Sindh FOI – Act 2006, district budget tracking and advocacy for practice to determine areas of improvements for better understanding of Sindh FOI Act 2006. SPO developed one-day training manuals on Right to Information (RTI), Freedom of Information (FOI), District Budget Tracking and Advocacy for Practice for CBOs and Politicians. By achieving milestones of the project the capacity of 33 men and 27women of 30 CBOs in freedom of information,district budget tracking and advocacy for practice via three days training was organized and conducted; shared by Ms. Panhwar.
It was generally shared but particularly by CBOs of District Thatta and Badin that some officials of government did not know about section 07 and Sindh FOI-ACT 2006. They were not ready to receive application for information request as they were not clear in their Job TORs that whether such kind of information was available? And if available, were they entitled to provide? On not receiving positive response from public departments, most of the CBOs submitted complaints of non-cooperation and requested for legal cooperation by the office of ombudsman. Some letters were served to relevantdepartments to provide legal response to concerned applicant and others addressed to involved applicant for going to concerned departments. Some members and local leadership of targeted political parties PPP, PML-N and PML-F shared that requests for information from public departments or complaints against the maladministration could not be submitted till the permission of respective political party leadership.
It was generally shared by CBO representatives that there was no designed information officer at district level to provide the requested information from public departments; most of the government officials did not know about freedom of information law and most of the applications were not received in first instance by the public departments.The Ombudsman office was not ready to accept the information requests or complaints from citizens on the pretext of not submission of application to concerned departments and procedural delays were the main barriers for access to information.
The Public funds were not adequate for development and welfare of local communities but if the allocated funds were being used properly than these funds could make difference. Supporters of freedom of information were listed as citizens, affected persons, media and civil society where as opponents of this law were regarded as landlords, contractors, political influential persons and other actors of status quo;it was shared by the participants.
Mr. Saleem Abbasi, Program Officer CVP project, shared that Political affiliated persons, women, vulnerable groups, extremely poor and government officials were among the group not so much active to apply the freedom of information law for the solution of their issues due to the certain issues of personal affiliations, lack of accessibility and corruption.
Mr. Javed Jabbar, Chairman SPO BoD, was the Chief guest of closing convention. He said that information has multiple types and impacts on the very life of individual, household, society and state as a whole. People are not well informed even that determination of the sex of child lies with male rather than female; despite that, the government key positions quote female population 52% rather than 48%, it shows that right to information is being manipulated with misinformation or disinformation. It is not enough just to ask for freedom of information but freedom of right information to the citizens in any capacity. It is amazed to know again and again that those stakeholders who should be great supporter of freedom of information are against the right of information of a common citizen as their interests collide with the interests of common man of this land. The Government officials are either not aware about this law or they dislike any citizen to dare and come for information.
It is very delighted occasion to know that peoples have practiced this law as their right and resolved some issues related with the interests of general public for promotion of female girls, spending public money accountably, accessibility to basic health care, availability of safe drinking water, dispose of waste material etc. based on the increased capacity and motivation to make some difference. It is also good to know from the representative of information department government of Sindh to amend the law of freedom of information nearer to the requirements of modern times as it has been practiced in KPK and Punjab provinces. SPO will be always there to strive for the advocacy for better legislation and service delivery.
Ms. MarviAbidSamoon, Mr. Ali Talpur and Mr. Ali Murad Gadahe form Badin, Mr. Riaz Jeelani and Mr.Rasheed Jakhro on the behalf of Ms. Bakhtawal Lashari from Thatta and Mr. Zafar Hameed Baloch from Malir received shieldson the successful resolution of cases of their areas related to Health, Public Health Engineering Department and Local Government.
The event was honored by the participation of Mr. JavedJabbar founding member and chairman of SPO, Mr. Muhammad Ali Shah representative from Sindh Ombudsman, Ms. Noor Un NisaGhanghro, Secretary General Sindhi Association of North America (SANA), Mr.Zulifiqar Shaikh,Director Information Department, Mr. Liaquat, Deputy Director of Education Department, Civil Society Members, Media and CBOs/Politicians from Districts of Badin, Thatta