RTI Bill: 'Leave us alone' – Speaker to civil society

The Speaker of Parliament, Professor Aaron Mike Ocquaye has asked civil society organisations to leave the legislature alone to do its work as far as the Right to Information (RTI) Bill is concerned.

Promising the RTI bill would be passed by February 2019, Prof Mike Oquaye said: “The bill has seen several years and several parliaments, and it is tricky in many ways.

“The budget and other important matters also came our way.

“We have done 80 per cent of the bill already, and we will finish the bill fully, I believe and professionally, on or before the end of February 2019,” he said.

“The public should please trust us and leave us alone for now to do a good job. We are committed to passing the bill and we are working towards it. No civil society should, at this belated hour, jump on our backs and pretend as if they are the people who are interested in passing this bill,” Prof. Oquaye added.

CSOs have been putting pressure on parliament to pass the bill which has spent almost two decades before the legislature.

Recently, there was a spat between the Media Coalition on the RTI and some security officers in parliament when the group’s members wore red t-shirts to the premises of the law-making body to pile pressure on the house to pass the bill.