Ghana’s President John Dramani Mahama has cast doubt on the value of a freedom of information law, while still indicating he thinks it will be passed.
The president’s remarks came in an Oct. 7 DW television interview with Tim Sebastian and caused the Coalition on the Right to Information Coalition in an Oct. 13 statement to call his comments “very disappointing.”
Undercutting the potential significance of the legislation, Mahama said:
In Ghana, there are many guarantees of free speech and independent media. One of the best is chapter 12 of our constitution that guarantees a free and independent media. I don’t think that the Right to Information Bill would transform Ghana’s independent media landscape in any dramatic manner. We have that freedom already, our people have absolutely no problem expressing themselves in the media and so the freedom of expression bill will only enhance freedoms that we have already.
Passage of the bill had been delayed, he said, because “there’s not been consensus on what the scope of exemption should be and so it’s gone back and forth.”
Taking issue with his characterization, the coalition said:
Furthermore, it is most unfortunate for the President to say that there is no consensus on the scope of exemptions in the Bill. This suggests that the President’s minders have failed to properly brief him on developments on the Bill. This is because after several years of debate and engagement, civil society has finally reached a consensus with the Select Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs (the Committee) on the exemptions in proposed amendments which is currently before the whole House for adoption. This historic consensus is in accord with international best practice and human right norms and the RTI Coalition would urge our President to fully support the proposed amendments.
The president also said, “I believe that people are quite satisfying with what we have, is a starting point and if we need to tweak it a bit in the future, we can always make an amendment to the act.”
He predicted, “I am sure Parliament will pass it before the life of this Parliament is over and when it is done, the media and researchers and anybody who wants to take advantage of it will do so.”
The legislation has received a first reading in Parliament, the closest it has come to passage in the decade-long campaign for an RTI law. (See previous Freedominfo.org report.)
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