The coalition on the Right to Information-Ghana has commended the
Nigerian Senate for passing the Freedom of Information Bill of that
country.
The Senators passed the bill last week Wednesday, three weeks after
its passage by the House of Representatives. If given assent by
President Goodluck Jonathan Nigeria will be the second country in West
Africa, after Liberia, to have a Right to Information law. The Senate
has also set up a six man conference Committee to harmonise the grey
areas between the Bill passed by the House of Representatives and the
one by the Senate. Sierra Leone is also in the process of passing its
Bill.
The Coalition in its statement issued in Accra last Thursday, March 17
called on Ghana's Parliament to take a cue from the Nigerian example
and pass the Bill accordingly. Ghana's Bill has been before Parliament
since February last year with no indication of when it will be passed.
The Coalition as a result has been embarking on several activities to
educate the public on the bill as well as impress on Parliament to see
the urgency of the bill and pass it. On January 27 it organized what
it terms the 'Public March' to present a petition to the government on
the status of the Bill which was approved by cabinet in November 2009.
The Coalition was full of praise of the Nigeria Bill and explained
that Clause 2 of the Nigerian bill stated; "Every citizen of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria has a legally enforceable right to, and
shall, on application be given access to any information or record
under the control of a government or public institution or private
companies performing public functions, provided the disclosure of such
information or release of such record(s) shall not compromise national
security".
Also according to section 5 of the Act, where information is applied
for under the Act, the public institution shall, within seven days
after the application is received, make the information available to
the applicant.
However, Ghana's RTI Bill if passed into law in its current state will
give an information officer of a public agency 21 working days to
notify an applicant of his/her decision to grant or refuse a request
to information. The information officer then has a further 14 days
within which to provide that information.
In addition, the Bill gives the sector Minister of the relevant agency
the power to extend the time for a further 3 months. So it could take
an applicant in Ghana a maximum of 160 days to receive information
from a public institution. "This is simply unacceptable and contrary
to the principle of timely access to information," the Coalition
noted.
The Nigerian Bill also allows government bodies to withhold some
information concerning national defence, law enforcement, personal
privacy and economic interests whereas section 5,6 and 7 of Ghana's
RTI Bill exempts all information from the Office of the President,
Vice President, and the Cabinet, and all information created by or in
custody of the securities and intelligence agencies. The only
information not exempt is "information which contains factual or
statistical data and does not disclose information concerning a
deliberation or decision."
"The Coalition urges the Ghanaian Parliament, as representatives of a
nation that prides itself as the champion of African excellence to
follow the examples of Nigeria and Liberia and expedite action on
reviewing and adopting the bill and pass it as an Act of Parliament,"
it said.
http://allafrica.com/stories/201103211807.html
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