DESPITE being a well-intended initiative, Pakistan Citizen’s Portal (PCP) is failing to serve the envisioned purpose of empowering the people and addressing their problems at their doorsteps, apparently because of dismissive attitude of those in bureaucracy.
This is only shaking confidence of the public on the portal.Every now and then, one sees Prime Minister Imran Khan taking notice of negative feedback of complainants and ordering reopening of complaints.
Also on Saturday, Prime Minister Imran Khan directed to reopen 238,098 of the 1.5 million complaints lodged with the PCP against various government departments and institutions last year.
As things stand now, the PCP is only serving as a third-party postal service.
Each time a complaint is registered, it is referred to relevant department, following which the complaint is either closed or dropped for vague reasons.
It has been observed that complaints closed with the status of relief or partial relief granted, often get negative feedbacks.
There seems to be no accountability on how the system works and that makes it frustrating for citizens who reach out to portal with genuine concerns.
There is a need to bring PCP in conformity with its primary objective of serving the citizens in a just manner.
While those sitting at public sector departments need to honestly fulfil their responsibilities in resolving the complaints, it is also for the Prime Minister Delivery Unit (PMDU) to ensure that respective department handles complaints in an efficient manner.
There are also instances where people have also got genuine relief from this platform but much more needs to be done to keep intact confidence of the masses.
In our view, a mechanism should be evolved to check and monitor as to how departments deal with complaints and action must be taken against the ones not taking them seriously.
Giving importance to complainants’ feedbacks and making them yardstick for performance of any department can improve the system.
We will also suggest that the PMDU needs to be further strengthened with necessary skilled workforce to make PCP more effective and enable it to tactfully handle complaints.
