The much-talked about Right To Information (RTI) Bill was laid in Parliament on Friday by a Deputy Attorney-General, Joseph Dindiok Kpemka in fulfillment of the New Patriotic Party (NPP)’s promise to make its government more accountable and transparent.
The President, Nana Akufo-Addo had promised at the 61st Independence Anniversary on March 6 at the Black Star Square that his government was very determined to re-introduce the RTI bill in parliament before parliament rises on Friday and true to his promise, the bill was introduced in parliament on the last day of the first meeting of the second session of the Seventh Parliament which ended on Friday for the Easter Holidays
Vice President, Alhaji Mahamudu Bawumia also gave indication of the introduction of the bill last week when he announced that cabinet had approved of the RTI and was ready to be introduced in parliament.
After the laying of the RTI bill by the deputy Attorney-General, the Speaker, Prof Mike Oquaye then referred it to a joint committee of Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and Communications for scrutiny and report to the plenary for further consideration.
The speaker in his closing remarks before parliament rose on Friday said parliament will attach a lot of importance to the passage of the bill which will ensure transparency and accountability in government and also help the work of the Special Prosecutor.
He said parliament will tackle the bill as soon as it reconvenes in May and expeditiously work on the bill to be passed.
The new RTI bill will have some amendments to the old one which the last parliament failed to pass.
Speaker Mike Oquaye had proposed that the new bill be made to cover private companies who work on behalf of the state.
Before the new bill was laid, the minority leader, Haruna Iddrisu, had questioned the process of the laying stressing that the laying of the RTI Bill had some procedural breaches which he said will not help the image of Parliament.
According to him, the Bill was supposed to be gazetted at the Assembly Press before being sent to Parliament for laying but this was not done. “The gazetting has not been done so it is a complete breach of the constitution,” he noted
The Majority Leader, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu, however, disagreed with the minority leader’s argument saying a Bill does not necessarily need to be gazetted before it is laid in the House. He said the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, as well as the Communications Committee have the opportunity to work on the gazetting process at the committee level before the plenary considers it. Laying of the RTI Bill, comes days after civil society groups had mounted pressure on the government to lay it before the House rises on Friday, March 23
The Bill was first drafted 22 years ago under the auspices of the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) and has since suffered several setbacks.
In 2016, the bill came close to being passed by Parliament by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration after losing in both the parliamentary and presidential elections but the then minority NPP raised pertinent issues about certain clauses in the bill which led to its abortion.
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