News:
July 18, 2012
Minority members of Parliament have blamed the majority side for the delay in passing the Right to Information Bill.
The Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Albert Kan-Dapaah, stated that the bill might never become law considering the slow pace of work on it.
According to him, “with barely two weeks to go on recess, and despite all the promises which had been made earlier, I note that the very important Right to Information Bill is again not featured in the business statement for next week.”
Mr. Kan-Dapaah thus implored the House through the Speaker to accord the bill the necessary attention it needs to ensure its immediate passage.
He also called on the majority side to make clear their intention on the bill saying “if they don’t think it should be passed, they should come to this house and tell us.”
He further added that without the Right to Information Bill, accountability to the people of Ghana is deficient.
But the Chairman of the Joint Committee handling the bill, Emmanuel Kwasi Bandua said the Majority has no intentions of delaying the passage of the Bill.
He attributed the delay to the change in institution handling the bill. “At the committee level, we believed that an independent institution should handle and operationalize the bill so we decided to pass it on to CHRAJ.”
He however stated that committee is expecting a write up from CHRAJ to enable them finalize the report and make the necessary recommendations to the Members of the House.
Citifmonline.com/Ghana