Peace FM Online: Ghana: Saturday,
September 24, 2016.
The Coalition
on the Right to Information (RTI), Ghana has observed with interest the
selection of His Excellency, President John Dramani Mahama by UNESCO to deliver
the keynote speech at an event scheduled for September 26th to mark the first
International Day for Universal Access to Information (IDUAI) (officially
September 28), at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris. September 28 was previously
called the ‘Right to Know Day’ before it was declared by UNESCO member States
in November 2015 as an international day to be celebrated as the ‘IDUAI’
Will the
selection of President Mahama to speak at the September 26th event mark a new
dawn for access to information in Ghana? Should we expect that after this
international event, H.E will be motivated to, upon his return, engage
Parliament to secure the passage of the RTI Bill with the critical amendments,
as his government committed to do under the 2012-14 and 2016-17 Open Government
Partnership (OGP) Action Plans?
President
Mahama is scheduled to speak on Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
specifically elaborating on the role of media and access to information in
promoting peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development,
promoting access to justice for all and on building effective, accountable and
inclusive institutions at all levels. The event which is aimed at highlighting
the key importance of Access to Information in the success of implementation of
the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will bring other guest speakers
including journalists, NGO workers, entrepreneurs, academics etc. to share
their experience and ideas on eleven SDGs with emphasis on how access to
information will help in achieving them.
The RTI
Coalition believes that the selection of President Mahama to speak on such a
day as the ‘IDUAI’ and on such a topic, even though ironic given that Ghana has
failed for more than a decade to put in place an access to information
legislation, presents an opportunity for the President to make concrete
commitments on the passage of an effective and efficient RTI legislation before
the current Parliament lapses in 2017.
The Coalition
would like to remind President Mahama that the progress to secure the review
and passage of the RTI Bill since 2013 when H.E resubmitted the Bill before
Parliament, has been very slow. In June 2016 the consideration of the Bill was
stalled due to the lack of political will by the current Parliament to
prioritize the consideration of the Bill as they promised.
As a
Coalition, we are concerned that President Mahama has not demonstrated strong
commitments to the passage of the RTI Bill despite his party’s commitment to
same in their 2008 and 2012 manifestos. Being an election year, the failure by
the 6th Parliament to pass the Bill before its tenure lapses would mean that
the process will have to commence all over again with the new government and
the new Parliament. As a result of this, the Coalition sent a petition to President
Mahama through the Chief of Staff on August 18 2016 asking him to deliver on
his party’s previous manifesto promises on the RTI Bill. Till date the
Coalition has not received any response to the petition.
It is
interesting to read the NDC’s 2016 manifesto promising as part of its 2017 –
2021 commitments to ‘implement the Right to Information Bill when passed by
Parliament, same promise that was made in 2012. However the 2016 manifesto
omitted the very relevant part of the 2012 manifesto on the passage of the Bill
as follows - ‘the next NDC Administration will … and work with the legislature
to prioritise the passage of the Freedom of Information Act’, meaning that
government is not committed to engaging Parliament to ensure the passage of the
Bill before and even after the elections. Does this mean that Ghanaians should
wait for another four years before this law is put in place? As the Co-Chair of
Eminent persons on the SDGs and given that the UNESCO’s celebration this year
is focused on ‘powering sustainable development with public access to
information’, shouldn’t the passage of an RTI law IN HIS EXCELLENCY’S OWN
COUNTRY be a priority now?
We would like
H.E to know that Ghana as the beacon of democracy in Africa, as he emphasized
at the recent UN General Assembly (UNGA), is lagging behind in terms of
promoting access to information for citizens to effectively participate in
governance and make informed choices. Several other African countries including
countries in transition have successfully passed the law. For example: South
Sudan, Guinea, Niger, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Togo, Nigeria,
Rwanda and most recently Kenya and Tanzania to mention but a few, have all
passed the law.
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