Civil society organisations kick against Right to Information bill
Civil Society Organisations have taken strong exception to the Right to information (RTI) bill in its current state.
Advertisement
They said the government should, as a matter of importance, incorporate submissions made by Ghanaians and deliver a bill that the country would be able to use.
According to them, the bill should not be passed by Parliament in its current form, if suggestions made by the citizenry are not incorporated.
These were the general sentiments of participants and facilitators at a seminar on "The Right to Information (RTI) as a tool for social accountability," organised by the Institute for Social, Statistical and Economic Research and the Economy of Ghana Network ( EGN).
While the Minister of Information, Mr Mahama Ayariga, who was present, gave all the assurances about the commitment of the government in passing the bill, participants expressed scepticism about that commitment in passing an RTI that would encourage Ghanaians to access information.
A research fellow, Legal and Governance with the Centre for Democratic Development, Mr Victor Brobbey, in a presentation on the implications of an RTI for good governance and social accountability, said in the absence of the law, which was crucial, Ghanaians could access information under certain provisions of the 1992 constitution.
Mr Brobbey, however, cautioned the government and those in charge of ensuring the passage of the law that extremely broad exemptions contained in the draft would not be in tandem with the Constitution.
He said it would not be in anyone's interest for the bill to be passed only for people to head to the courts to enforce their right to information as prescribed by the Constitution, but circumscribed by the law.
The Executive Director of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), Ms Mina Mensah, presenting an option paper on the RTI, was emphatic in her submissions to duty bearers, saying that "if you are not ready to give us a workable bill, then do not pass it".
She cautioned the government not to also fast-track the bill to give itself the renown of being committed to the open government partnerships that it had signed up to.
"We need a really open bill, not an opaque bill that Ghanaians can only be outsiders and participate through barriers contained in the bill," she said.
She said the bill had too many exemptions, which showed an intention of the grudging acquiescence to the passage of the bill, that clawed back the right to access information, instead of encouraging Ghanaians to access it.
The Executive Director of the Ghana Anti-corruption Coalition (GACC) said care ought to be taken in order not to pass a bill which would demand amendments a year or two after its passage.
A lecturer at the University of Iowa, Dr Etse Sikanku, and the Operations Manager of City FM, Mr Bernard Avle, took participants through how the RTI when passed could be used in increased expository stories and how the media could mobilise via a website created for the purpose.
The Member of Parliament for Bekwai, Mr Joe Osei Owusu, cautioned that the RTI must innovatively be used to scrutinise the work of civil servants who short-changed the state in their work.
The chairman for the event, Prof. Mike Oquaye, said the law when passed would inject some freshness into research and information gathering and sharing.
By Caroline Boateng/Daily Graphic/Ghana
