GII Exposes Holes In RTI Bill

The Ghana Integrity Initiative (GII) has shred to pieces some clauses in the Right To Information (RTI) Bill before parliament, saying that the inclusion of the clauses do not conform to the African Union (AU) Model Law.

The GII says Clauses 18 to 31 of the Bill provide procedures for access, specifying the steps to be taken to gain information, which includes timelines and fees.

But the GII critiqued the AU Model Law which states: “A requester for information is not required to pay any fee on lodging a request.”

Another observation the GII made in the Bill, which is awaiting parliamentary consideration are Clauses 5 to17, and the local Chapter of Transparency International argued that the clauses provide too many exemptions, thus undermining the principles of the AU Model Law and the benefit that a credible RTI Bill should give to the citizenry.

The GII, which is on a nation-wide tour to engage civil society in its campaign for a Credible RTI Bill, made a stopover at Adidome, Volta Region, to raise citizens' awareness on “how backward” the current RTI Bill before parliament is.

In his engagement with the civil society, Jacob Tetteh, GII Facilitator explained that public officials hold information for public good and so, he said, the public should question why, for example, Clauses 5 to17 of the RTI Bill before parliament would provide instances where information is exempted from disclosure.

He mentioned the maximum and proactive disclosure of information, right of appeal to procedures for access to information and absence of fees and timelines, as some basic principles a credible RTI Bill should have.

On the exemptions, Jacob Tetteh said that should be subjected to the 'Harms Test Principle', which states that information should be disclosed, if the benefit of disclosure outweighs the harm that the disclosure would cause to the public.

“Therefore, if the Bill before parliament will not bury victimisation and would, for instance, request the requester to show an ID card to access information, then what is the benefit of this RTI Bill to the Ghanaian at the remote village, who will need information on some project in his constituency?”

Mr Tetteh posed to his audience, who sharply demanded that, any other “backward” clauses should either be corrected or deleted before parliament considers the Bill.

The GII enumerated some benefits of a credible RTI Bill as a powerful mechanism for securing social justice and the right of the people, assure and enhance probity and accountability and facilitate and give full effect to public participation in the process of governance.

Based on these lapses, the GII observed in the Bill that, it pushed the electorate to petition their Members of Parliament (MP) to be vocal on the floor of Parliament, to get those “backward” clauses in the Bill amended.

It later collected signatures from civil society groups to second the push for amendment in the Bill, and this Jacob Tetteh said, “Is a campaign we are embarking on for a credible RTI Bill.” These notwithstanding, the GII lauded some of the clauses in the Bill, which it said are the best on the continent.