Editorial
Archiving rules
Punishment should be introduced for violators
IT is disconcerting news that government officials have been showing little respect to the archiving rules laid down in the National Archives Ordinance 1983. As per the rules, officials are supposed to send 25-year old public documents and records to the national archives for safe-keeping. The rationale behind such practice is for storing them with care for any future use by governmental and non-governmental organisations as well as institutional or individual researchers. Therefore, as per rule the archive is supposed to be open for every citizen of the country. But, unfortunately, with the ministry high officials showing no interest in following the specified rule, archive authorities are finding it difficult to collect the documents. Understandably, important government documents are either getting lost or mutilated in some storehouse.
We are utterly surprised to learn from a report in this daily that government officials disregard the rule on the ground that no one follows them as the practice has yet to catch on. We believe that is a lame excuse for not complying with the entrusted responsibility and it does not speak well of the sense of responsibility of the officials. This is in fact another example of how casual government officials can prove to be with a serious matter. Furthermore, it is disgraceful on their part to shun the responsibility on the ground that there is no provision for punishment for non-compliance. We cannot help but ask: Do government officials need to have the fear of punishment to be doing their work? This is unconscionable.
We understand an inter-ministerial committee was formed about 16 months ago to streamline the process but, we have reasons to believe, the committee is yet to make its presence felt. It is, however, good news that the establishment ministry has started the process of collecting 25-year old documents to set the example so that other ministries come forward. We hope all the government offices from hereon would follow the ordinance for the interest of future reference and research. We have to keep in mind that today's document is tomorrow's history.
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