TODAY IS INTERNATIONAL RIGHT TO KNOW DAY
TODAY MARKS the 4th International Right To Know Day, ‘a day set aside to raise awareness of every individual’s right to access government-held information: the right to know how elected officials are exercising power, and how the taxpayers’ money is being spent.’ In Ghana, freedom of information advocates are celebrating the day in sadness. This is because the Right to Information Bill of 2005 as amended is still a pending legislation because Cabinet is yet to adopt and send it to Parliament to be debated upon and passed into law.
Members of the Right to Information Coalition in Ghana are calling on the President, Mr. John Agyekum Kufuor, to honour the promise he made to Ghanaians in his 2005 State of the Nation Address.
The President had promised the passage of the Right to Information and the Whistle Blowers bills to help fight corruption and graft as a major priority of his government’s in 2005.
But alas! 2005 is gone. We are close to the last quarter of 2006, yet the President’s promise has not been fulfilled.
Article 21 (1)(f) of our Constitution guarantees that all persons shall have the right to information subject to such qualifications and laws as are necessary in a democratic society.
Apart from this, Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, of which Ghana is a state party, states:
“Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression: (which) right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media regardless of frontiers”, while the country is also a state party to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights, and has adopted the Rio Declaration, all of which guarantee the right to information.
The Chronicle joins the Right to Information Coalition in expressing disappointment at government’s inability or lack of courage to pass the bill into law as a way of widening the frontiers of the pillars of good governance because in the face of international guarantees, to which we have appended our signatures, without the absence of a legislation, undermines Ghana’s commitment to these international obligations.
Ghana would have been in a mood to celebrate today’s fourth International Right to Know Day if this bill had been passed.
Ghanaians have the right to access information and expect a fully functioning and accountable democratic state delivered by government.
The government has no excuse for having not presented the bill, which was first prepared by the Attorney-General’s Department in 2002, reviewed in 2003 and 2005, and has been re-submitted to Cabinet.
This paper cannot understand what is actually holding back a presentation of the bill to Parliament.
In the face of the strides that we have made in our democratic journey, it would just be appropriate for government to take the next step in ensuring the passage of the Bills referred to in order to score for ourselves some more democratic grade points to curb corruption, which thrives in the absence of information.
We are not sure if there is something government is afraid of. What this paper will advice is that government accelerates its mechanisms to have the bill debated and passed into law at the next sitting of Parliament.
All Ghanaians are entitled to the right to access government-held information: the right to know how elected officials are exercising power, and how their taxes are being spent.
The passage of the law would lift Ghana to join the comity of nations to celebrate the day in a manner befitting the country.
The Chronicle congratulates the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative - Africa Office, Media Foundation for West Africa, Ghana Integrity Initiative, Centre for Environmental Law and Development, Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, Ghana Journalists Association, The Foundation for Future Christian Workers and Mr. Akoto Ampaw, all of the Right to Information Coalition, for their relentless fight to see the passage of this bill.
