Proposed amendments not attributable to delay in the passage of the RTI – Coalition bill

General News of Friday, March 22, 2019

Source: citinewsroom.com

2019-03-22

The Coalition for the Right to Information (RTI) said its proposed amendments to the RTI bill were to blame for no delay in its adoption.

According to a member of the Coalition, Dr. Kojo Asante, the problems they raised with the bill, which is just a step away from adoption, are not new and can be solved in minutes in advance.

"There is a problem with Article 13 in which we made a small proposal to make sure it's self-explanatory. I think it will not take many minutes to come to an agreement, because those proposals were made several months ago, so I do not think anyone is necessarily delaying anything that should worry us all. "
The Coalition's comments came one day after House leaders refused to accept responsibility for the delay in pbading the bill.

Ahmed Ibrahim, chief bad of the minority minority, said that the House had done its best to pbad the bill, which did not escape its last reading in Parliament.

He noted, however, that civil society organizations had requested changes to the bill before it was pbaded, which would result in further delay.

"The Coalition of Right to Information says that she does not want it [RTI Bill] be pbaded as we did for them to bring other things. The public must understand that it is not the Ghanaian Parliament that is trying not to adopt the ITRs. [Bill] but it's the audience that brings new amendments to the work we've done so far. Remaining with us alone, we did what we should do. "

Professor Michael Oquaye, Speaker of Parliament, made similar comments, stating that "the Parliament of Ghana has and will continue to do its part" with regard to the pbadage of the RTI.

The RTI bill has been in Parliament for nearly two decades, but it has still not been pbaded despite calls from the media and civil society groups.

The adoption of the bill has been delayed lately due to conflicts during the period of operationalization.

But the House then agreed to make it operational within 12 months of its adoption.

Coalition calls for new amendments to RTI bill

Three advocacy groups, committed to ensuring that the Right to Information Bill (RTI) was pbaded, had already called for further amendments to the bill to align with the constitution. of 1992.

Ghana, the Media Coalition on RTI and OccupyGhana explained that the coalition's technical committee had reviewed the amendments made to date by Parliament and recommended to Parliament two main issues that merited further consideration.

Regarding the amendments to clause 13, a joint lobbying statement noted that Clause 13 exempts information revealing an opinion, advice, recommendation, consultation or deliberation given to a public institution because it could undermine the deliberative processes of this institution.

Although the coalition recognized the need to facilitate the effective functioning of government and the state, the coalition felt that any limitation of the constitutional right to information should be narrowly defined.

Unfortunately, the current draft Article 13 could easily be misinterpreted to dilute seriously, if not totally, the right to information.