RTI Bill laid in Parliament

After years of waiting, the Right to Information Bill (RTI) 2018 was Friday laid in Parliament by a Deputy Attorney-General (A-G) and Minister of Justice, Mr Joseph Dindiok.

The bill was read for the first time and the Speaker of Parliament, Professor Aaron Mike Oquaye, referred the RTI Bill to the Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs for consideration and report.

After the presentation and adoption of the report, the bill would go to the second reading, the consideration stage, and then to the third reading and possibly passage into law.

Legal tussle

The Minority Leader, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, raised a constitutional issue to the effect that the bill should be gazetted 14 days before it is presented to Parliament.

However, the Majority Leader, Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, said it was the committee that should determine whether the bill should be treated as urgent nature or it should go through all the processes, including the 14 days’ gazetting requirement.

Giving his ruling, the Speaker said the Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs should determine whether the bill was of urgent nature or not.

Background

The RTI Bill was first drafted in 1999, reviewed in 2003, 2005 and 2007 but was only presented to Parliament in 2010. It was brought back to the Sixth Parliament but could not be passed till the expiration of that Parliament on January 6, 2017.

Calls for the passage of the RTI Bill had been intensified recently with a demonstration by a group last Monday which was demanding the passage of the bill.

Contentious issues

Speaking with journalists last Tuesday, Mr Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said one contentious issue with the RTI Bill had to do with the creation of an office which would be an assembly point to receive all relevant information such that any citizen who wanted information could go to that office and access it.

He indicated that others were of the view that the creation of such an office would be too much of a Herculean task.

Perhaps, Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said, an office which would serve the purpose of directing people to relevant places to access information could be created after which all ministries would then be required to establish information units.

Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu stated that the other matter had to do with what information qualified to be described as national security information, and indicated that it was one of the sore issues in the previous bill.

He stressed the need for the country to be careful about the nature of information that should be released to people who might need it.