Signature Campaign towards the Adoption of the Proposed Amendments and the Passage of the Right to Information Bill

We the undermentioned signatories hereby respectfully petition Parliament to adopt amendments to the RTI Bill proposed by the Select Committee on Legal, Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs and thereafter pass the amended RTI Bill into law before 6th Parliament of the Fourth Republic lapses on 6th January 2017.

After more than twelve (12) years since the first draft of the Right to Information (RTI) Bill was crafted by the Attorney General’s (AG’s) Department, in 2002, Ghana’s Parliament is in the process of passing the RTI Bill into law. The Bill was referred by Parliament to its Select Committee on Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs. As part of its deliberative process, the Select Committee held stakeholders’ consultations in May 5- 6 and September 2-3, 2014 with representation from the AG’s Department, the Coalition on the Right to Information and other stakeholders.

Following the consultative meetings, the Parliamentary Select Committee, made up of members from both majority and minority in Parliament, unanimously adopted a number of critical amendments to the Bill in its report, which it submitted to Parliament.  The objective of these proposed amendments by the bipartisan Committee is to make the Bill a robust, transparent and effective right to information legislation that would promote democratic participation of citizens in decision making, transparency, accountability and the fight against corruption in public life. Some of the key amendments proposed by the Committee are:

the need for the long list of exemptions to be subjected to a harm test, thereby banishing blanket exemptions from the Bill
reduction of the excessive timelines for granting access  to information
inclusion of the establishment of an independent oversight mechanism to oversee the implementation of the Bill when passed into law
simplified appeal process
cost of accessing information from any public institution should be limited to the actual cost of reproducing the information
 

The Bill is currently at the consideration stage, where the whole House is expected to debate the Committee’s proposed amendments for adoption and passage into law. The adoption of the proposed amendments by Parliament is crucial in getting an effective RTI law that will promote transparency, accountability and the fight against corruption.