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The Right to Information Coalition (RTI), Ghana (RTI Coalition) has expressed disappointment at the responses received by institutions and individuals seeking information from some public institutions under the RTI Act.
He said that while some public institutions denied access, citing excuses such as the lack of basic structures to help disseminate information; many other public institutions completely ignored requests for information, including very basic public information.
A statement issued in Accra by the Coalition said the developments were very concerning.
He said a recent example of such a disturbing trend was the National Communication Authority (NCA) demand on the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) to pay the “unreasonable / outrageous” fee of 2,000.00 GHC to access certain public information, which the NCA was supposed to proactively disclose without prompting under the provisions of the RTI Act.
The coalition said it was equally concerning when the Electoral Commission (EC) allegedly rejected a request from a Member of Parliament (MP) for information on the acquisition of the Commission’s Biometric Voter Management System (BVMS).
He said that the Commission’s alleged explanation that it could not comply with such a request because the rates had not yet been set by Parliament and therefore had to pay to request information under the RTI Act was concerning.
“It was necessary for the Superior Court to order the Electoral Commission to provide the requested information, but at a rather exorbitant fee of 1,500.00 GHC,” he added.
The statement said that the exercise of a fundamental human right such as the right to information should not be expensive; otherwise it was no longer a right.
He said that it is important that public institutions take into account that public information is already paid by taxpayers, so charging applicants for the search for public information is equivalent to a double charge.
The statement said that that was the reason why section 23 (3) (d) of the RTI Act provided that “When the Information Officer decides to grant access; the notice will indicate the rate prescribed for the reproduction of information ”.
He said that the Act proceeded to provide under section 75 (2) (c) that “Despite subsection (1), no fee or charge shall be paid for the reproduction of information that is of public interest.”
The statement said that it was implicit in the text of Section 75 (2), (3), (4) and (5) that the fees to be charged were the reasonable costs of reproducing the information requested and not the time invested in reviewing the application or prepare / search the information.
“All public institutions, without exception, had to comply with the provisions of the RTI law, including the provisions regarding fees,” he said.
The statement said the RTI Coalition had noted with interest the public statement from the Ministry of Law oversight, the Ministry of Information to investigate the NCA’s response to the MFWA.
He said: “However, we want to emphasize that this type of responses from public institutions such as the NCA, only send incorrect signals to the public and suggest that the RTI Act rather makes it difficult to obtain information rather than facilitating easy access to information, which which discourages its use. “
He said the RTI Coalition condemned the events and called on the government to take immediate practical steps to prevent such acts from happening again.
The statement said that the current situation directly contradicted the statement of the Ministry of Information that it had provided public institutions with training on the importance and application of the RTI Law.
In addition, he said that the actions / inactions of public institutions emphasized the need for the Government to work with stakeholders, including the Coalition, to implement the revised RTI implementation roadmap to facilitate the effective implementation of the RTI to curb corruption and promote good governance in the country. flourishing democracy.
Source: GNA
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