The majority leader of the Ghana Parliament, Cletus Avoka, May 16 said a right to information bill will be passed before the parliamentary session ends Jan. 6, 2013.
His comments came during a press conference at which he criticized the bill’s supporters for blaming him for holding up action, according to media reports such as a report in The Daily Guide and another in My Joy Line.
Avoka said his recent comments on the RTI bill were taken out of context. He said in a May 7 radio interview that there were other priorities, such as a Petroleum Revenue Management bill and several other measures.
On the same show, Felix Twumasi Appiah, the chairman of the Legal, Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs Committee, said a report is “almost ready” on the nation-wide consultations held last summer on the bill. “What we don’t want to do is to pass a bill that will not pass the test of time,” he said.
Avoka at his press conference “blamed the RTI coalition for contributing to the delay in the passing of the bill, saying the group had failed to present its inputs on some grey areas in the bill,” according to The Daily Guide.
A leader of the RTI coalition, Nana Oye Lithur, was quoted as saying, “They promised to pass the bill and it will be used as a campaign issue in this election.” The election will be held Dec. 7. A World Bank-financed “options” paper is about to be sent to parliament.
The back and forth was also reported in The Ghanaian Chronicle, whish also reported: “In view of the demands of the passage of the RTI into law, the vociferous Majority Leader said he had suspended a critical field trip to South Africa and the United Kingdom, and demanded a report from the joint Committee of Constitutional, Legal & Parliamentary Affairs and Communications handling the bill before the floor in two weeks, for debate to commence.”
Committee Chairman Appiah on the radio show also took a dig at the World Bank, which recently declined to support a request for a fact-finding trip for parliamentarians to London. “Unfortunately for us, the World Bank, which has decided to support us, are not putting their money where their mouth belong,” he said, indicating talks with the Bank are continuing.
An article by Ayuureyisiya Kapini Atafori & Laud Nartey in Pubic Agenda began; “MPs, lawyers, media experts, human rights activists and civil society groups have descended hard and heavily on Majority Leader Cletus Avoka for publicly stating, without any hesitation, that the passage of the Right to Information (RTI) Bill is not a priority for Parliament.”
The account includes numerous statements by the bill’s supporters, including from member of Parliament, P.C. Appiah-Ofori, who said of Avoka, “He stands condemned by me for making such a statement. I don’t agree with him because without freedom to information we can’t fight corruption.”
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