Minority shoots down passage of Right to Information Bill; raises red flag

An attempt by Parliament Wednesday to finally pass the right to information bill, which has dragged on for over 15 years, once again hit a snag as the minority members in the House raised red flag over aspects of the bill.

The right to information is a fundamental human right guaranteed by the country’s 1992 Constitution and recognized as a right under International Conventions on Human rights.

The current parliament, though has made progress with the bill, there are currently 24 proposed amendments left to be made to the bill. There was heated exchanges between the speaker of parliament and the minority leader on the floor of the House over the passage of the right to information bill.

While the speaker wanted the bill to be passed before the house rises, the minority leader argued, certain clauses in the bill needed to be looked at before passage.

On Tuesday, when the mps resumed for the last sitting of the House before the Christmas break, the bill was on the schedule to be taken through the consideration stage but when the process begun, MP for Adansi Asokwa, K.T Hammond, said members did not form a quorum to proceed.

The exercise was thus suspended, and on Wednesday the Speaker, Edward Doe Adjaho urged members to stay in the chamber to enable work on the bill to be done as the House has made commitment to passing it. But the Minority leader, Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu said he was unware of such commitment to passing the bill; something that triggered a response from Mr Adjaho resulting in a heated exchanges between the two.

“I don’t want us to go into legalities. We have a bill before us; it is an outstanding business. [The] business committee has programmed it and it is before the house, it is on the Order Paper and I have called that we should take that item. I am doing my work as the Speaker of Parliament,” Mr Adjaho stated.

Mr Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu without prejudice to the Order Paper quoted by the Speaker, and without prejudice to the Executive authority of the President, they have given themselves a Presidential Transition Act, hence the House must work with.

The speaker interjected, stating “I want to make this point very clear, the Presidential Transition Act is Presidential Transition Act , it is not Parliamentary Transition Act.”

But the Minority leader did not take lightly to that, saying “Is that the way you want to go? If that is the way the Speaker wants to go , with respect, I will tell you that we will not be part of this in this house” His reaction attracted jeers from the majority side of the House.