News:
March 19, 2019
Member of Parliament (MP) for Suhum, Frederick Opare Ansah has said the current government has shown commitment in passing the Right to Information Bill which is currently at the third reading.
According to the Suhum lawmaker he has been in the House long enough and can say that, the RTI Bill has gone the long haul and through second reading.
“We have finished with second consideration stage and pending third reading essentially means that Bill would have passed if there is nothing to delay it and again second consideration stage is short, usually it takes thirty minutes or within a day we would have been done since it has to deal with a specific clause, so it is not opening up of a new Bill”.
Mr. Frederick Opare Ansah further added that as a country Ghana should be cautious with legislation of RTI, indicating that we should do it and get it right the first time; he has seen countries that have passed it like the United Kingdom and they have had major challenges with implementation.
“That is why I brought a proposal for the suspension of some parts for some months for us to put ourselves in preparation of it full implementation I am not surprise all of a sudden civil society are back and asking us to hold on whiles they bring in some proposals”
Again I woke up someone I did not know had forwarded a message to me in that regard, talking about the new proposal, he added.
According to him, the Speaker is asking parliament to take the RIT off the order paper because its presence and non completion of it is given the impression that Parliament does not want to execute that particular activity.
“I agree with the Speaker, if something is delaying it why are we putting it on the order paper, we should bring it back when we are ready to take it and when the new proposal coming from civil society comes so that we can incorporate the new changes if the need be”.
Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com