Public officers to be surcharged for blocking Right to Information requests
Public officers who refuse to release information requested under the Right to Information (RTI) Act will be held liable and made to personally pay fines imposed on their institutions, under a new proposal by the RTI Commission.
The proposal is aimed at stopping state institutions from using public funds to settle penalties while continuing to withhold information from citizens.
The Head of the RTI Commission's Legal Department, Stephen Owusu, in a radio interview monitored by Graphic Online on Accra based Joy FM on Wednesday [May 12, 2026] said a draft Legislative Instrument (LI) containing provisions to surcharge individual officers has been prepared.
He said the LI should have been laid before Parliament in 2024, but the process stalled after parliamentary business was disrupted by election-related activities.
Mr Owusu said the Commission was currently engaging its new governing board on the draft before forwarding it again to the Attorney-General for presentation to Parliament.
Mr Owusu explained that under the current legal arrangement, there was no provision to hold individual officers personally liable when institutions were fined for refusing to release information.
The RTI Act, passed in 2019, gives citizens the right to request information from public institutions and also empowers the RTI Commission to investigate complaints and impose administrative penalties where institutions fail to comply.
Figures from the Commission show that between 2020 and July 2025, penalties amounting to about GH¢5.6 million were imposed in 76 determinations involving 64 institutions.
Out of the amount, 36 institutions owe GH¢2,149,000 in unpaid penalties, while 23 institutions have already paid about GH¢3.5 million. [The institutions, mainly public institutions, have been paying the fines from public funds].
The new proposal is aimed at extending the fine to individuals within institutions who fail to release information so that they will pay for the fine from their personal resources and not from public funds if they neglect to do their duty.
Institutions
Among institutions that have paid penalties are the Ghana Police Service, which paid GH¢450,357, the Ghana Audit Service, GH¢60,000, and the Parliamentary Service, GH¢53,785.
Those yet to settle penalties include the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, which owes GH¢30,000, the Judicial Service of Ghana, GH¢100,000, the Attorney-General’s Department, GH¢50,000, and the Public Procurement Authority, GH¢100,000.
The National Service Authority was also fined GH¢50,000 after refusing to release personnel deployment figures requested by the Media Foundation for West Africa during investigations into the National Service ghost names scandal.
Mr Owusu said the amount had risen to GH¢159,285.71 by March 2026 because of interest charges of 10 per cent every 14 days.
He said the information requested had still not been released.
Court action
Mr Owusu disclosed that the RTI Commission had filed more than 50 court cases against institutions that ignored its directives after deciding around 2023 and 2024 to pursue enforcement through the courts.
He said the Commission had secured favourable judgments in at least 95 per cent of the cases.
Despite this, he admitted that the Commission still faced challenges monitoring whether institutions complied with orders to release information.
“It is unfortunate, but in almost all the instances when we decide to go to court, the information has not been released to the applicant,” he said.
Mr Owusu said the Commission had since 2024 required institutions to copy the Commission when releasing information after a determination.
He added that the Commission had also started joining court actions filed independently by applicants as an interested party to support efforts to secure disclosure orders.
