Peace FM Online: Ghana: Thursday,
October 13, 2016.
The discourse
around access to information has often focused on how it helps in the fight
against corruption and in enhancing citizens’ capacity to exercise other
rights.
A lot has
been said about how the lack of information impedes citizens’ ability to assess
the decisions of their leaders, and even to make informed choices about the
individuals they elect to serve as their representatives. However little or
nothing has been said about how access to information benefits the work of
public institutions and agencies themselves most especially Parliament as a
legislative body and individual members of this body.
Often times
when Parliament is called upon to consider the passage of the Right to
Information (RTI) Bill, most Members of Parliament (MPs) approach the task
completely oblivious of the immense potential benefits that such a Law will
bring to them as representatives of the people and their functions as such.
Most of them
worry that the Bill when passed into law will empower the already ‘intrusive
and unprofessional ‘media to become even more uncontainable. A few others worry
that the law may empower the ordinary citizen who cannot be trusted with
official information about how state resources are managed while many others
believe that the law will leave them vulnerable and open up their private lives
and secrets to public scrutiny.
The RTI Bill
if passed will be in the interest of Parliament as well as individual Members
of Parliament. It will serve as a tool which they can use to obtain information
not only about the activities of the Executive but also about what the
bureaucracy of Parliament is doing.
The kind of
government information that is obtainable through a Right to Information Law is
clearly different and more important than the information offered by
governments through their normal public relations channels and websites.
There may
well be the apprehension that the passage of the Right to Information Bill will
empower the citizenry, but that is what the whole democratic project is
about. Article 35 (1) of the 1992
Constitution the chapter on Directive Principles of State Policy – states it
clearly in the following words:
‘Ghana shall
be a democratic state dedicated to the realization of freedom and justice; and
accordingly, sovereignty resides in the people of Ghana from whom Government
derives all its powers and authority through this Constitution’
Further, what
MPs ought to understand is that the passage of the law will at the same time
improve public confidence in the work of Parliament. It is not in doubt that Parliament, because
of the nature of its work, is prone to public criticisms particularly in respect
of their oversight role and what the public perceive as its undue party
partisanship.
As such there
is a need to constantly re-establish public confidence in the system by
reassuring the public that they are taking measures designed to advance the
wellbeing of the people by promoting transparent governance. As a former MP
puts it ‘…the only way Parliament can win back the trust of citizens is for
them to be seen as being more proactive in their accountability role through
the passage of the RTI law’.
By the
provisions of Article 93(2) of the Constitution, the basic function of
Parliament is to make laws. This means that no person, institution or body has
the power to pass any measure with the force of law except by or under the
authority conferred by an Act of Parliament; however, a number of functions are
incidental to this law making function.
This article
summarizes the functions of Parliament into three categories and then proceeds
to analyse them in relation to the value that access to information brings
generally to the work of Parliament and specifically the impact that the
passage of the Right to Information Bill will have on each function. .
Functions
of Parliament:
1.
Legislative:
Access to
information is key if any Member of Parliament is to be effective as a
parliamentarian. Some people might argue that MPs may not need a Right to
Information Law to obtain information but it is important to note that
legislative power is exercisable by MPs collectively whether in plenary or in
committee work and as such individual MPs have no more right of access to
official information than the ordinary citizen.
An access to
information regime is critical if any Member of Parliament is seeking to
comment on a Bill, introduce an amendment to an existing legislation or make a
critique of a proposed legislation that seeks to address social realities. Such
initiatives must be informed by proper research to obtain accurate data,
statistics and other relevant information necessary for meaningful
consideration of, and deliberation on Bills if they are to achieve their
eventual desirable social ends.
Without the
Right to Information Law, the bureaucracy may not be readily disposed to giving
out information and consequently getting accurate and reliable statistics and
data from government may prove to be a herculean task particularly where there
is little or no investment in record keeping and management. Without accurate
and reliable information such private member initiative may be originated on an
erroneous premise.
Access to
information enhances the main work of Parliament in passing Bills into law,
scrutinizing statutory instruments and deciding whether or not they will be
annulled or allowed to take effect by the effluxion of time. When Bills are
introduced to Parliament, they are read for the first time and subsequently
referred to the relevant committees for thorough discussion and debate.
At this stage
the Committee requests for information from the public in the form of calls for
submission of memoranda to enable it consider different views on the Bill.
Citizens and members of the public will be limited in the memoranda and
suggestions they submit to Parliament if they are not armed with relevant
information, in many cases from public bodies.
Where this is
the case, Parliament misses out on the possible new ideas and useful
perspectives that the public may bring on the proposed law if they had the
relevant information. It is absolutely impracticable for Members of the
Parliamentary Committee to at all times know or anticipate the impact that a
particular law will have on the citizenry when passed and therefore, the
absence of information may mean that Parliament may be passing laws only to seek
to amend them immediately because of issues that were not brought to their
attention at the time of consideration.
2.
Oversight:
Parliament
has the duty to keep a watch over the performance of the Executive, which
controls the public service, to ensure that the implementation of public
policies conforms to the approved development agenda of the state and that
expenditure incurred is in accordance with what is authorized by Parliament.
Increasingly majority of public services are being delivered by private sector
operators and without access to information, Parliament will be unable to
effectively scrutinize contracts that may have been awarded by government to
these private agencies.
With the
Right to Information Law, individual MPs can compel not only public servants
but private bodies that are paid from the state purse to release information
and such bodies will be obliged by law to disclose the information requested
within a given time frame and in the prescribed format.
Furthermore,
Article 75(2) empowers Parliament to ratify international treaties, agreements
and conventions entered into by the Executive. To be able to effectively carry
out this responsibility, Parliament would need adequate information on those
treaties or international initiatives that Ghana has signed unto, otherwise
ratification/adoption will be delayed. A case in point is the Open Government
Partnership (OGP) Initiative which the Government of Ghana signed in 2011 under
the leadership of President John Attah Mills.
3. Representation:
A Member of
Parliament is the representative of his constituents. He serves as the
communication link between his constituents and the government. It is on the basis of information obtained at
the constituency level that individual MPs are able to effectively scrutinize
development projects and activities in their communities. At this level, access
to information becomes even more critical for individual MPs, particularly
minority MPs, who may want to obtain information from local authorities.
In Ghana for
example, the District Chief Executives (DCEs) are appointed by the President,
in a situation where a DCE appointed by the ruling government is unwilling to
release information, it becomes quite challenging for an MP to get the right
kind of information to be able to effectively assess projects in his
constituency. An interview with a former MP revealed that during his tenure as
an MP, he and his District Chief Executive (DCE) were not in good terms as a
result he could not obtain any information from the DCE; and the Assembly
members on their part could not provide the kind of information he needed.
According to
the former MP, he had to deploy all sorts of strategies to gather credible
information regarding his constituency including buying lunch for people and
paying bribes so that these people can volunteer information.
Another
sitting MP (name withheld) recounted how he and his Municipal Chief Executive
(MCE) were at loggerheads such that he could not obtain any information from
him regarding the balance on his share of the District Assembly Common Fund
(DACF), he decided to write to the Coordinating Director requesting for this
information but by the time he got the information, some amounts of money have
been taken from the common fund without his knowledge. If the information had
been timely, maybe he could have prevented this robbery.
Clearly, MPs
should be more interested in the enactment of the Right to Information Law even
more than the ordinary citizen. Justice Gerard LaForest, before retiring from
the Supreme Court of Canada, addressed the underlying value of freedom of
information Laws in the case of Dagg vs. Canada (June 26, 1997) as follows:
“Parliament
and the public cannot hope to call the government to account without an
adequate knowledge of what is going on; nor can they hope to participate in the
decision making process and contribute their talents to the formation of policy
and legislation if that process is hidden from view”
In summary it
is evident that the right to information and its legal regime inures to the
benefit of our legislators. It is therefore crucial for Parliament to step up
to the plate by ensuring the adoption of a comprehensive access to information
law in Ghana.
If indeed the
275 Members of Parliament are keen on passing the RTI Bill currently in
Parliament, one would have seen a sense of urgency in the consideration process
which started fully only in May 2016 but stalled in June. The speedy passage of
the RTI Bill with the critical amendments proposed by the Select Committee on
Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs is the smartest choice that the
6th Parliament of the 4th Republic of Ghana will make in this election year,
2016.
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