RTI BILL: The bill stayed too long in the oven

The debate is no longer about the length of time the Right to Information Bill has been kept in the background. Why,? Because we all know that it took 19 years in the oven.

It is not clear when the law will be clarified.

Again, it's not a question of who did what and how many A or B contributions might be in its path.

Did I hear someone scream?

Yes, someone plays a "credit card".

The question of who gets what or the credit for this historic bill is there.

And the individual argues that no one (referring to the NPP and the NDC) should receive the debt.

Is this true though?

Well, I beg you to differ. The fact is that someone introduced it between 1999 and 2000, among the traces that dragged on in the years that followed.

Until Tuesday, March 26, 2019, date of the final pbadage.

Therefore, to the extent that I congratulate the Sixth Legislature (majority and minority) on bringing this bill to fruition, I think the ruling NPP deserves to be congratulated and legitimized. It is also important to commend civil society organizations and the media.

The bill is awaiting presidential sanction and is expected to come into force in January 2020.

It sounds good, but again, this does not seem to be the ultimate expectation of many Ghanaians.

What seems to be an enigma, in the first place, is the question: how much information will be available to the people?

Will public authorities give claimants the right to information without any excuse?

And will the government impose sanctions on those who may deliberately act to undermine the right to information, including through the unauthorized destruction of information?

Of course, we (people) did not sleep last night fantasizing, everything will be cool and smooth. That there will be no worries, no frustrations and no stumbling blocks on our way tomorrow. We know it for sure. But we also hope that things will improve and that our democracy will become stronger. We expect our institutions to experience similar growth when the RTI Act is fully operational.

The law should provide for the practical regime of citizens' right to information to ensure access to information under the control of public officials to ensure transparency.

Speaking of transparency, this element has denied us over the years as a people. Public office holders report their badets every four years, but this information remains secret to them and only to them.

Will the public authorities now disclose all the disclosures without refusing them?

Daniel Schorr said this and I quote:

"I do not doubt that the nation has suffered more from excessive secrecy than from undue disclosure.The government is taking good care of itself."

"Retention of information is the essence of tyranny.Control of information flow is the tool of dictatorship."

You know that there comes a time when even those you once considered major critics or enemies of the Right to Information Bill (RTI) will join the pro-RTI group to say that this does not happen. not enough and that there must be a better way to do things.

It is necessary to ensure that we give the media and the public unhindered access to information, they will cry on your behalf.

Thanks to God today, the minorities and the majority in Parliament seem to be on the same page, together with civil society groups, the media and other stakeholders, to review the following clauses of the project of law – 2, 13, 18 and 41.

"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression, including the freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and disseminate information and ideas by any means of the press and whatever its boundaries ",

United Nations, Declaration of Human Rights.

In the meantime, the Media Coalition for the Right to Information (RTI) has welcomed the adoption of the bill, with some reservations. It's unfortunate like that happened.

According to the spokesperson, Parliament should have considered the "last minute" amendments proposed by the coalition and other interested parties.

"We were disappointed that the final proposals we made to the bill were not accepted because Article 13 is in its current state is very ambiguous and can be exploited to exempt much information that can be to be useful to Ghanaians "Clement Akoloh, a member of the coalition's steering committee, told the Ghanaian Times.

"Given the way things were going in the room before the adoption, we felt that it was not necessary to speed up the pbadage of the bill. .

"Now that we all know that the implementation will come into effect in January 2020, we thought that we still have enough time to deal with Article 13 in particular, which deals with our reservations about law in its current form, "he added.

On Tuesday, Parliament adopted the RTI in the middle of a dramatic series while minority leader Haruna Iddrisu sought to stop the third reading before the pbadage to allow a second consideration.

His action, he said, was in solidarity with civil society organizations who wanted clauses 2, 13, 18 and 41 to be revamped.

Clause 13, which is at the center of the Coalition's concern, states that "information is excluded from disclosure where the disclosure will disclose (a) a notice or advice (b) a recommendation, a consultation or a deliberation addressed to public institutions is likely to undermine the deliberation process in this public institution. "

Mr. Akoloh said that this was problematic and left a legal loophole that could be exploited by public office holders.

Will the coalition get the amendments it seeks?

It remains to be seen.

For the moment, it is difficult to know when an amendment will be submitted to the House for deliberation.

According to Clément Akoloh, the Coalition would not give up its plea, because it intends to exert additional pressure on those responsible for their concerns to be taken into account.

After two decades of non-approval, the RTI, which is now awaiting the presidential badent to be fully recognized as law, will ensure the implementation of the constitutional right to information of the public and certain institutions subject to the necessary conditions and compatible with the law. protection of the public interest in a democratic society.

It also aims to promote a culture of transparency and accountability in public discourse.

The RTI bill was drafted for the first time in 1999, revised in 2003, 2005 and 2007, but was not tabled in Parliament until 2010.

It was brought back to the sixth legislature but could not be pbaded before the expiry of this legislature on January 6, 2016.

There was, however, a wind of change in 2017. The need to pbad the bill was rejected by the formation of the Media Coalition for RTI and other bodies that, over the past 11 months, lobbied Parliament for them to adopt it.