Passage of a right to information law in Ghana is unlikely this year, according to assessments in several recent, in-depth articles.
In the aftermath of summer hearings around the country, Parliament could be in a position to act on the bill, but no specific plans have been outlined. (See previous FreedomInfo.org reports.)
A Sept. 6 article in Aljazeera summarizing the RTI situation in Ghana suggests that unnamed supporters now believe that passage will not occur until 2012. It was written by Paul Carlucci and William Yaw Owusu.
In a separate, earlier article by Owusu, he quoted a parliamentarian who was pessimistic about approval of the bill this year. Owasu wrote in part:
Since coming into office, the NDC government has made some of the right noises about passing the bill into law. Recently, a series of public input session came to a close, and they were praised by the Ghana Right to Information Coalition (GRIC).
But skeptical Ghanaians just have to remember the erstwhile New Patriotic Party (NPP) government, which enthusiastically drafted the bill, but soon developed cold feet towards passing it into law. It seems an odd irony, given that the NPP was responsible for striking the Criminal Libel Law from statute books.
The current government will not give a specific time in which the bill will be passed, although Deputy Majority Leader in Parliament Abdul-Rashid Pelpuo is optimistic the bill will be passed before the end of 2011.
“It is possible we can wrap this up by the end of 2011,” says Alhaji Pelpuo, who also sits on the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Constitution, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and Communications, the legislative body tasked with overseeing the drafting of the bill.
“We are happy to facilitate the passage of the bill so that Ghanaians will have unfettered access to information held by government officials.”
Osei Bonsu Amoah, popularly referred to as O.B., is not so optimistic. The NPP MP for Aburi Nsawam is also a member of the Joint Committee.
“No,” he says of Alhaji Pelpuo’s timeline. “It’s not realistic. There’s no way the bill can be passed by the end of the year. Currently, we are on recess and Parliament doesn’t even resume until October, after which we will go on another break again in December.”
O.B. Amoah doubts it will make the agenda by the end of the year. Even if it did, it would have to be picked apart clause by clause, and if any recommendations from the public panels are included in the draft, they too will have to be debated before the bill can be amended.
“I’m sure,” says O.B. Amoah, “when it gets to the floor of the house, other amendments will have to be made, and if you combine all these factors, the bill, in my opinion, is likely to be passed by 2012, before the general election.”
Expanded Coverage Urged
Separately, a minority political part in Ghana has contended that the RTI bill should apply to civil soviety groups and non-governmental organization, according to an article by the Ghana News Agency.
The Convention Peoples’ Party (CPP) Sept. 5 passed a resolution stating: “Section 64 of the RTI Bill should be expanded to make it obligatory for CSO and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO) whose activities underpin tenets of good governance, transparency and influencing democratic public opinion.
“The citizens must have a right to access information about the operations of CSO and NGOs about their sources of finance, project intentions, and other vital information which will contribute to transparency and accountability,” Bright O. Akwetey, CPP’s Shadow Cabinet Minister of Justice and Attorney General told the Ghana News Agency in an interview in Accra. He also was quoted as saying, “The proliferation of CSO and NGOs whose leaderships have ascribed to themselves absolute public powers to criticise governments and other leaderships in the country but without any control mechanism must be check through the RTI.
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