Delaying RTI Bill: Inusa Fuseini Indicts Parliament

“I am ashamed to be part of the Parliament which has failed to pass the Right to Information Bill over the years.”

The above is a quote from the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Tamale Central Constituency, Inusa Fuseini, who confessed to the public on Joy FM’s news analysis show, Newsfile on Saturday morning.

The host of the programme, Samson Lardy Ayeneni, sought to question the delay in the passage of the Bill after a barrage of failed promises to pass the RTI Bill into law have left the public disillusioned about the priority the authorities attach to the citizen’s access to information in a democratic country such as Ghana.

The Tamale Central Legislator, who is also the Ranking Member on Parliament’s Committee on Legal, Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs, has always displayed his personal support for the passage of the Bill which is expected to bring sunshine into governance by making basic information available to the citizenry concerning the administration of the state.

Aside the individual opposition to the passage of the Bill demonstrated by the Member of Parliament for the Adansi Asukwa constituency, K. T. Hamond, the collective body language of the Legislative arm of Government has also not given the public enough reason to believe that the passage of the Bill into law is a priority.

All appeals made by Civil Society Organizations and most recently, a concerted effort by the Media Coalition on RTI and the CSOs Coalition for the passage of an RTI Bill has fallen on death ears. Despite some promises made by the Majority Leader, Osei-Kyei Mensah-Bonsu, to the effect that the Bill would be passed before the reading of the 2019 Budget on November 15, 2018, this has been over taken by events with the Bill still at its consideration stage. After the budget reading, not even a single clause on the Bill has been considered by the House.

Currently, the Second Session of the Seventh Parliament of Ghana has less than two weeks to expire, however the Majority Leader has given another promise that Parliament may pass the Bill before the year 2018 comes to an end.

About The RTI  Bill

The RTI bill was laid before Parliament by the Deputy Attorney General Joseph Kpemka Dindiok in March this year.

It has been 22 years since the first RTI bill was drafted under the auspices of the Institute of Economic Affairs, IEA and 16 years since the Executive arm of government in 2002 drafted the first RTI bill.

The draft Executive Bill was subsequently reviewed in 2003, 2005 and 2007 but was never laid in Parliament until February 5, 2010.

Collusion against RTI bill

The Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) in the month of October accused the governing New Patriotic Party and the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) of colluding against the Right to Information (RTI) bill.

The Centre for Democratic Development (CDD) earlier this month accused the governing New Patriotic Party and the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) of colluding against the Right to Information (RTI) bill.

“…If there’s one, or two or three things that the two main political parties [NPP and NDC] align, agree to, then, it is this RTI that they don’t want. I think that’s what it is,” the Deputy Director of the CDD Dr Franklin Oduro who is also the CDD’s Head of Research and Program said at a roundtable discussion on METOGU anti-corruption report in Accra.

“My own view is that these two parties have demonstrated that they don’t want the RTI. So there’s no blame game between them, the NDC and the NPP,” he added.