Following a major rally for passage of a freedom of information law, a key minister in the Bahamian government has indicated that a plan to pass a law will be issued.
However, the minister said, more that 100 amendments would be necessary to fix a version that came close to becoming law several years ago.
Minister of Education Jerome Fitzgerald made these comments June 15 to Candia Dames of The Nassau Guardian.
His response was welcomed by organizers of a rally held June 11 to urge passage of a FOIA bill. About 100 persons attended the event, representing a broad coalition of 30 organizations with a combined membership of 35,000.
A FOI bill was passed in February of 2012 under the previous government, run by Free National Movement, but was never enacted into law and ws not revived by the Progressive Liberal Party government elected two years ago.
Fitzgerald was quoted as saying, “There is a lot of work which is required before a Freedom of Information Act can be implemented…”
He cited the need for substantial alterations, for improvements in government recordkeeping, and conflicts with the 2007 Data Protection Act.
“Despite these challenges, I have committed to my Cabinet colleagues that I will soon be in a position to present to them the timeframe and resources necessary to address the numerous deficiencies in the present act, settle the inherent conflict between the two acts and strengthen the Department of Archives, so that the Freedom of Information Act can be properly implemented and administered,” Fitzgerald said, the Nassau Guardian reported.
The increasing pressure for a FOI law has been led by an environmental group Save the Bays, with many allies, including unions and the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce and Employers Federation.
Lindsey McCoy, of Save the Bays, welcomed the minister’s commitment. “The purpose in our demonstration was hopefully to put it a few notches higher on the to-do list,” she told Freedominfo.org.
She said the previously passed bill “was not strong enough, there were a lot of loopholes in it.”
Save the Bays has been troubled by government secrecy around development projects, the details of which only emerge after the approval of a “Heads of Agreement” document. One such project included dredging through coral reefs, the scale of which was not initially revealed.
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