WHAT OTHERS SAY

FORUM FOR COMPLAINT

It is a problem of two parts: the ability of the citizenry to lodge complaints, and the government’s ability to address the latter. On Sunday, Prime Minister Imran Khan unveiled the Pakistan Citizens’ Portal, a primarily online system to lodge complaints against government departments and public officials. The key feature of the PCP is that the complaints system will be monitored by the Prime Minister’s Office; Khan has vowed to himself regularly oversee the resolution of the public’s complaints. To the extent that the portal will make it easier for the public to lodge complaints and that complainants will have to reveal their identities to reduce frivolous and malicious complaints, the PCP could be a step in the right direction. But a great deal will depend on the implementation of the system. Indeed, the specifics of the PCP may be new and updated for a more connected age, but the idea of a prime ministerial portal for public complaints has been attempted several times before, whether as a call-in programme on television or some similar scheme. The effectiveness of those previous schemes was perhaps more in the public relations domain than actual problem-solving. Perhaps the PTI government and Khan have a better road map than their predecessors — the PCP is based on a scheme introduced in KP by the PTI during the last government’s term there — but there are essential questions regarding scale and efficacy. Dawn