Embarrassing RTI Bill Exposed

Opinions on Monday, October 19, 2020

Columnist: Asante Appiah Minkah

2020-10-19

On October 2, I embarked on a fact-finding mission to obtain information on the budget spent so far by the Ministry of Health through the RTI channel.

To my surprise, a gentleman gave me a bag of my life (name withheld) and further said “you don’t have any information to give me and I should go before he calls security even though I had duly introduced myself to him.” Finally, he said “that the so-called unrealistic bill does not apply to important state organizations like yours.”

I left embarrassed and decided to delve into the entire RTI implementation saga. In February 2020, some staff members from the various MDAS were trained to hold the fort earlier than the original RTI staff whose recruitment process was ongoing after they applied in December 2019.

My investigations confirmed that the original RTI staff have been recruited through the entire legitimate process (exams and interviews) in June / July and have been redundant sleeping at home while already performing government pay duties.

The most shocking revelation that came from my source in the information services department under the ministry of information, which is the parent organization that is supposed to implement the RTI bill, is that they conducted a three-day training for them the month passed and after which they were informed by their instructors to go home and find something else to do because the RTI bill is just a political white elephant that they do not intend to implement in any way.

Dear colleagues in the media, I will humbly beg all my colleagues in the media and concerned citizens to oppose this shameful camouflage bill to improve the course of journalism and development in our beloved country.

I defend freedom and development in the media.