The Right to Information Coalition issued a statement July 27 challenging President John Dramani Mahama to fulfill his campaign promise to pass the Right to Information Bill this year.
The RTI bill is languishing in Parliament without presidential encouragement, the Coalition said, elaborating:
The Coalition would like to draw the attention of the public to the fact that as at today 28th July 2016, Parliament has only considered 29 clauses out of 157 clauses of the amendments proposed. The Bill was last considered on June 23rd and till date it is not clear why Parliament has decided not to proceed with the consideration process.
There is nothing to show that the Executive is lobbying or working with Parliament to ensure that the Bill is passed before the elections.
In fact we have heard some Parliamentarians say that the RTI Bill is an orphan because nobody from the executive is lobbying for its passage.
The statement later comments, “So far, we have not heard the President requesting Parliament to, as a matter of urgency, pass the ‘Peoples Bill’ inclusive of the amendments into law neither have we heard him cautioning Parliament for delaying the consideration and passage of the Bill with the amendments.”
Separately, an article in Pulse observes, “Journalists have to scrap and gnaw at the crumbs of information that slip through the cracks of the Ministry’s non-transparent systems or rely on patriotic whistleblowers” to get government financial information.”
“Perhaps it is high time more pressure is applied for the passage of the Right to Information Bill in order to equip the media and any well-meaning Ghanaian to get access to public finance documents that would help ascertain figures put out by the finance ministry,” the article says.
An article in PeaceFMonline points out:
At the 117th Session of the UN Human Rights Committee held in Geneva in June 2016, a government delegation led by Hon. Dominic Ayine, the Deputy Minister for Justice and Attorney General, indicated that the RTI Bill will be passed by July 22, 2016.
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