- Second Deputy Speaker of Parliament has opened up on reasons why the Right to Information Bill has not been passed by the house.
According to the longest serving Member of Parliament, the lack of clarity on what Ghanaians really want is the reason the bill has suffered such delays and not that the MPs or government is not interested in passing it.
Speaking during an interaction with the media in Wa on Saturday, Mr. Bagbin said, “the reason it has delayed is that Ghanaians did not know what we want to be in the law. So it made it difficult for some of us to push the bill through in its original state. It is not a matter of just passing it into law but making sure that it truly suits what we want.
“We had to change everything in it to fit the current state it is in. We met with the coalition in Koforidua and changed everything to capture issue of time limit and also whether people will have to pay before getting information”, he added.
Mr. Bagbin went further to add that, the initial bill wanted the Secretariat to be under the Attorney General’s office but the committee rejected it and chose to recommend an independent commission for the office.
The Second Deputy Speaker regretted for not being able to push the bill through. He said,”I regret not pushing this bill through and I am going to ensure that the Minority in Parliament now does not behave like the minority then so that we will have it passed as soon as possible to empower the media.”
By: Musah Lansa
