RTI Response After Two Years, Contradictory Position and Silence Over Development Projects: Is the Sports Directorate Withholding Facts from the Public?

musarrat ullah jan -

 

Musarrat Ullah Jan , KikxNow , Digital Creator

PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Directorate General of Sports has once again come under scrutiny over transparency after responding to a Right to Information (RTI) request more than two years after it was filed. Even more concerning, the response failed to address the applicant's original query.

According to official documents, Shah Fazal was assigned the additional charge of Director Development on August 1, 2023. An RTI application seeking information about the legal basis and authority for this appointment was submitted on April 9, 2024. However, the department did not respond until June 15, 2026, a delay of approximately two years and two months.

Surprisingly, instead of addressing Shah Fazal's appointment, the department's reply referred to Munir Abbas holding the additional charge. The response did not answer the core question raised in the RTI request.

The issue is particularly significant because several development projects were discontinued during the same period. Later, nearly 1,000 sports development projects across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were also scrapped. According to a report published by Dawn, the projects were terminated following findings by a Provincial Inspection Team (PIT) that allegedly identified financial irregularities amounting to approximately Rs700 million.

This raises a critical question: if these appointments and development projects were already under scrutiny and the subject of serious objections and investigations, why was the RTI request regarding the relevant appointment not answered promptly and accurately? Was withholding information for more than two years merely administrative negligence, or was it an attempt to keep the public from accessing the full facts?

Public institutions have a legal obligation to provide citizens with timely, complete, and accurate information. In this case, however, the prolonged delay, contradictory response, and failure to address the actual query have raised serious concerns about transparency, accountability, and governance within the Directorate General of Sports.

The matter now presents a test for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Information Commission, the Sports Department, and other oversight bodies. The key question is whether they will investigate this extraordinary delay, the contradictory response, and any possible administrative irregularities, or allow the matter to pass without accountability.

#KPSports #RTI #RightToInformation #Transparency #Accountability #KhyberPakhtunkhwa #SportsDirectorate #Governance #PublicInterest #InvestigativeJournalism #Pakistan #CorruptionWatch #OpenGovernment #SportsProjects #KPNews

 

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