Ghana’s Deputy Information Minister, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, May 3 said that President John Atta Mill’s administration is committed to the passage of the stalled right to information bill, but that the bill is in the hands of parliament now.
“Once that is done, I assure you, President Mills will not hesitate to grant it assent,” Ablakwa said, according to an account by The Chroncle about his remarks at a World Press Freedom Day event. Not quoting Ablakwa, the paper wrote that he said “the government had finished its path, and was awaiting that of parliament.”
Ghana’s parliament is on a recess, having delayed for many months the scheduling of public consultations. (See previous FreeedomInfo.org report.)
In the meantime, the key member of the Right to Information Coalition, Vitus Azeem, told Citi News said he is surprised that it is taking too long for the bill to be passed into law.
The Executive Secretary of the Ghana Integrity Initiative said:
I feel very disappointed and the coalition feels let down and I think the whole country feels let down for the fact we spent time and resources since 2003 working on this bill and up till now nothing is happening so definitely we are disappointed and we expect our parliamentarians to do better than that.
I think that they have some reasons why they don’t want this bill passed and you can always recollect the reasons that they give, that Ghana is not ready yet, we don’t have a good information system and all those things.
We were all witnesses to the passage of the ROPAL which was passed under a state of urgency and up till now we are not able to implement the ROPAL so there no convincing reasons why the Right Information Bill is not being passed.
[ROPAL is the law that allows Ghanaians living abroad to vote abroad in Ghana’s parliamentary and presidential elections.]
Filed under: What's New