Ghana parliament passes Right To Information law after long delays

Ghana parliament passes Right To Information law after long delaysGhana’s parliament has passed into law the Right To Information, RTI, bill, as at Tuesday evening according to an influential local media outlet, the Multimedia Group.

The bill which is meant to allow citizens access to a certain category of information in order to hold government accountable has been the subject of a series of protests especially from the media and civil society groups.

They accused lawmakers of deliberately delaying the passage of the law because of their own selfish interests. On their part, the lawmakers have argued that the bill needed fine-tuning in areas especially bordering on national security.

The right to information is enshrined in Ghana’s 1992 Constitution but, for many years, the country, despite its stellar media landscape and democratic credentials, had struggled to pass the RTI law.

As far back as 1999, Ghana’s Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) drafted an RTI Bill for Ghana. It was reviewed thrice (2003, 2005 and 2007) before it was presented in parliament for the first time in 2010.

In March 2018, the Right to Information Bill, 2018 (2018 Bill or Bill) was placed before Parliament. The current passage means it has taken a year to see the light of day. It will now await presidential assent.