RTI Bill Laid in Parliament

The Right to Information Bill has been laid before Parliament by the Deputy Attorney General, Joseph Kpemka.

The Bill has since been referred to the Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and the Communications committees of Parliament. This comes after Cabinet fully approved the Bill on Thursday.

But on the floor of the House, the Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrissu, raised concerns with the fact that the Bill had not been gazetted.

Per the Constitution, any Order, Rule or Regulation made by a person or authority under a power conferred by this Constitution must be published in the Gazette on the day it is laid before Parliament.

Gazetting involves the official publicising of law or other material by the state in its government gazette.

The Majority Leader, Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu retorted saying the Bill need not be gazetted before it is laid, as the Committees it has been referred to can deal with that.

22-year journey of Bill

The RTI Bill, which is expected to make information easily accessible by the media and Ghanaians to boost the fight against corruption, has been in legislation for well over 17 years because successive governments have failed to ensure its passage despite several assurances.

It was first drafted 22 years ago under the auspices of the Institute of Economic Affairs, IEA.

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

It was subsequently withdrawn to review some clauses.

Since then, efforts by several advocacy groups to put pressure on the duty bearers to have the Bill passed have also not yielded any positive results until now.

Observers have criticized successive governments for lacking the political will to pass the Bill.

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) government promised to pass the Bill when it assumed power in 2017.

Source: Citifmonline