News:
March 26, 2018
Minister for Parliamentary Affairs and Leader of Government Business, Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu has hinted that there are two contentious issues to deal with in the Right to Information Bill that has been reintroduce to the House and before the joint committee on Constitutional Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and the Communication committee.
As civil society agitated for the passage of the bill it was reintroduce and laid on the floor of the House on 23rd March, 2018 for its first reading before the House went on recess.
The House is expected to return back from recess mid May, Majority Leader stated in an interview with ghanamps.com and noted that by ending of July the Bill should have been taken.
Mr. Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu revealed that, the two issues in contention; creation of an office as assembling point to receive all relevant information, and which issue to qualify as a National Security Information.
The herculean task of burdening one office accessing information or they giving you directions to where to get the needed information, which will result in all the Ministries having to establish information unit within so that one can go there and seek the relevant information, he said.
He further noted that the second issue of contention was which information qualify to be a matter of National Security Information it became contentious.
“We will need to be clear in our mind, not that government will be giving information with the right hand and taking it back with the left hand everything that was the issue in the previous bill that was contentious”, he lamented.
What information should be given out to people of this country. Looking for information there are two major things we should look at otherwise it may derail the entire access we want to grant to citizens looking for information, he added.
By: Kwaku Sakyi-Danso/ghanamps.com