RTI Bill passage: We have a defective parliament - Kofi Bentil

Vice president of IMANI Ghana, Kofi Bentil has described parliament as a "failure’’ due to how they handle the passage of the Right to Information Bill (RTI).

Touching on his observation concerning how MP’s have so far handled the bill, he expressed worry about their deliberate laid-back attitudes towards it.

He supported his claims with several reasons including the legislators being unable to serve as an effective check on the president’s rule, describing them as the worst culprits of absenteeism and so on.

In relation to the issue of absenteeism, Mr Bentil established that Members of Parliament deliberately ‘shy away’ from Chamber anytime the RTI Bill which forms part of the fundamental human rights of Ghanaians is up for consideration.

Due to this, the Vice President of IMANI Ghana has concluded that MP’s are more than ever unable to effectively participate in promoting good governance by establishing necessary checks on the executive and have also frustrated the passage of the RTI into a law.

"We have a parliament which is defective. I say this publicly because when we finish this RTI, the first thing we should do is to reform parliament. We have 275 members of parliament, we pay them very good money. Most of the time, most of them don’t go to work. At each sitting to discuss the bill, more than 80% of them are not at work’’ he quantified

Over 200 MPs abandon RTI Bill.

Over 200 Members of Parliament are consistently absent from the Chamber anytime the RTI Bill is up for consideration.

It is on record that only between 30 and 50 MPs are in the chamber anytime the RTI Bill is up for consideration over the past weeks.