NUGS calls for expedite action to pass the Right to Information Bill

Accra, Sept. 28, GNA – The National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) on Wednesday called on the Parliamentary Joint Committees on Communications and Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs to expedite action on the passage of the Right To Information Bill before Parliament.

“It is vital that the Right To Information Bill is put in place to streamline which information is available, how it is available, from whom and where,” it added.

The call was made in a statement jointly signed by Mr Peter Kwasi Kodjie, President and Mr Nobi Courage, General Secretary to commemorate the ninth celebration of International Right to Know Day.

In addition, they called on President John Evans Atta Mills to give meaning and effect to this unalloyed constitutional provision.

“We have seen the urgency with which government adopts other bills. Perhaps this may not be one of the priorities of government, but this bill really is the heartbeat of academia and should be treated as such,” the statement added.

NUGS contended that any further postponement of the passage of the bill was a continual denial of the fundamental human right, which could not be justified on any grounds.

It said the academic society thrived on information, a single most vital ingredient for learning and educational development.

They said research was a key component of the academic life of a student and could only be undertaken when information was available, without it research was impossible.

“The prerequisite for doing a good research is knowledge and information. Most students get choked in the process of writing their long essays and research proposals because of unavailability of information to the extent that some discontinue their area of research and pick others that are reasonably easier to get related data, much as those areas of study may not be necessarily be to the advancement of society.

“And even when information is available, it is either too costly or the bureaucratic processes are too cumbersome to be exploited by the student who is time-bound to produce an academic research material.”

NUGS explained that when enacted, the Right To Information Act would compel government agencies and other private agencies to make available information necessary for critical decision making.

“Such a move will encourage students to embark on researches that will be worthwhile to national development. With this status quo of concealing relevant information, meaningful research remains a mirage,” it said.

NUGS said the right to information included public’s right to access information held by public bodies, and every citizen had a right to know what public bodies were doing and how their activities affected them.

It said public bodies must as a matter of necessity provide information to the public whenever it was requested and to publish and disseminate information of public interest, because the citizens were in a better position to hold government accountable if they were well informed.

NUGS noted that corruption only thrived in secrecy and not in the open, so it behooved on government to pass the bill to show its commitment to alleviating corruption.

It recommended that the law should set a reasonable time frame to enable information to be given as soon as possible so as not to defeat the purpose of the request.

NUGS said the best practice required that fees should be limited to the actual cost of reproduction of information and further that the fees regime should be simple and easy to comprehend, costs should not deter applicants from requesting information.

“While it is understood that the applicant should pay for only the cost of reproduction of that information, an exclusion clause should be featured to cover students who require the information for research purposes and are able to prove same.”

NUGS recommended that such students should be made to pay only a quarter of the cost of reproduction, adding “With the way the fee structure is captured presently, it is ambiguous and unjustifiable.

“There is no justification why an applicant should bear the cost for the time that it takes to retrieve information. We recommend that the fee structure should be crafted in such a way as to reflect the capacity of the student to pay and access information.”

NUGS said an academic research covered a very broad spectrum; if access to information was limited as per the exemption of some class of information then by extension limiting the area of research to be undertaken by students.

“If the exempt information covers the Office of the President then it suffices that one is less inclined to choose a research topic in that direction even though that students’ research could provide a recommended path towards streamlining processes and enhancing flow of information from the executive to the ordinary Ghanaian.”

NUGS recommended that the law should allow for only exempt information whose non-disclosure was in the public interest.

“Here, it is important that the information which is to be exempted must be justified; it should be proven that the harm caused in disclosure is greater than the public interest in disclosure.”

“The bill must set out clearly and specifically a maximum time limit for implementation to ensure that there is no room for postponing the law indefinitely,” the statement added.

In another development, NUGS in a statement jointly signed by Mr Osman Ayariga, President and Mr Austin Brako-Powers, NUGS Press and Information Secretary, appealed to Parliament to help to facilitate passage of the bill.

Giving a background to the bill, they said, it was drafted in 2002 by the Attorney-General and had since gone through a lot of changes.

The NUGS called on governments world-wide to respect the right of the citizenry to information.

“We are also calling on the Government, Parliamentarians, political parties, civil societies, student leaders and the Ghanaian populace to help secure for ourselves the passage of the Bill into an enabling act which is vital for our nation’s development.

“It is our solemn hope that we will use the celebration to educate ourselves on the benefits our nation stands to bask in when its people have an easy and unfettered access to government-held information be it publicly-held or privately-held information,” it added