'We will make RTI an electoral issue' – Coalition tells gov't

The Coalition for the Right to Information (RTI) says it would make the non-passage of the Bill, currently before Ghana’s legislature an electoral issue in the December polls.

The Coalition says it is disappointed in the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) because after promising to pass the Bill in the party’s 2008 and 2012 manifestoes it has not done it.

Regional Coordinator of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, Mina Mensah said President John Mahama has not been true to his words that he would liaise with Parliament to have the Bill passed.

“The Chief Executive of Ghana cannot say he can’t push it. The Executive [arm of government] did not stay aloof when it wanted the Financial Management Bill passed by the House,” she told Francis Abban, host of The Pulse programme on MultiTV's JOYNEWS channel on Wednesday.

The Coalition has accelerated its pressure on government and Parliament to pass the RTI after President Mahama delivered a speech in Francis on the relevance of access to information as part of UNESCO’s International Day for Universal Access to Information (IDUAI).

He registered his frustration at the delay in the passage of the Bill after Cabinet had given its approval.

“Unfortunately it will go down in history as the legislation that has stayed the longest in Parliament,” he said in Paris, France.

The Bill was drafted in 1999 under the erstwhile President Jerry John Rawlings NDC-led government and has since seen three successive governments.

The current Parliament whose term spans from 2013 to 2016 has done some work on the Bill but the Coalition shrugged it off as minor.

Mrs Mensah said Ghana’s legislature has so far succeeded in effecting “commas, full stop, and punctuation mistakes.”

“So far only 29 out of the 68 clauses have been discussed and there have been only 157 amendments which are not the actual work expected of them,” she said.

Considering the relevance of the Bill, she entreated the media to “take this [Bill] and run with as their property.”

“Every single issue in this country has an information connotation but unfortunately most media people do not connect the issues to access to information,” she said, adding Ghanaians must prioritise the Bill among all the political issues.

She called on government to liaise with Members of Parliament from both divide to have the Bill passed.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Austin Brakopowers | Email: [email protected]