Lawyer Akoto Ampaw
An ardent crusader for the passage of the Right To Information (RTI) bill into law in Ghana, Akoto Ampaw, has observed that if the RTI bill, currently before Parliament, is passed into law, it will transform the political culture in Ghana in terms of the relationship between the government and the citizens.
According to him, an RTI law will empower the citizens to demand critical information from the authority since criminal charges may be leveled against institutions or anyone that fails to comply.
Citing an example to buttress his point, Mr Akoto Ampaw said Ghanaians could have leveraged the law, were it in force, to have demanded answers from the Ghana Water Company Limited concerning a recent publication in the newspapers that suggested that a study conducted by the Water Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in 2009, showed the Water Company’s treatment plants are incapable of removing algae toxins.
Civil society and pressure groups including the Ghana Coalition on Right To Information Law have been pressing upon Ghana’s Parliament to pass the bill to meet best practices.
When Parliament resumed from recess on Tuesday May 17, the RTI bill was mentioned as one of the bills that will be considered.
However, speaking on Metro TV’s Good Evening Ghana programme hosted by Paul Adom Otchere, on Tuesday May 17, Mr Akoto Ampaw revealed that the bill, in its current form, will rather be a hurdle to free access to information once passed into law since it has several defects.
He has, therefore, asked parliament to factor into the draft bill, the amendments made by the select committee on legal and constitutional affairs.
