By
Gifty Amofa,
Accra, Nov. 21, GNA
– Journalists have been called to test the Right to Information (RTI) Act by
applying for information from the information holders through the law.
Mr Samson Lardy
Anyenini, a journalist and lawyer, said they should try it (RTI) and if denied,
take action at the High Court.
He was addressing
journalists in Accra on Thursday at a day’s training on the newly passed RTI
law for media practitioners in the Greater Accra Region.
The event was
organised by Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA).
Mr Anyenini said
Ghana has passed many laws but would not implement them until government was
sued.
He said the law,
which would be implemented in January 2020 had not had its road map followed,
stating that every roadmap has been missed.
He said irrespective
of the delay the right thing has been done to ensure its implementation and
called on government to put in the right machinery to kick-start the
implementation.
Enumerating the
roadmap, he said, government should ensure the RTI infrastructure was put in
place, the Legislative Instrument (LI) and set up its commission.
Mr Anyenini said the
Commission would have to publish guidelines to enable the information holding
institutions to determine how to design their manuals.
He said there is the
need for government to ensure that people with the expertise were employed as
well as engage stakeholders such as MFWA to do the needful.
The stakeholders, he
said, are to assist the media to get the Act worked as well as mobilise lawyers
to help push it.
He urged journalists
to get copies of the RTI, read and educate the public on them.
Mr Anyenini took
journalists through the structures of the Act, its exemption regime, omnibus
clause and also information and how to access it.
He said the Act is a
fundamental human right which was not for journalists but the citizenry and
applying for information could be made by writing or verbal.
In applying for an
information, one would interface with Information Holders (institutions),
Information Officers, Institutional Heads and the RTI Commission, he said.
The work of the
information officers is to generate, process, maintain and preserve information
which is accurate and authentic and they have to publish a manual every year,
without waiting for a request from the public.
He said the manual
would contain departments and agencies under the information holders, their
organogram, classes of information; for free or at a cost, name and details of
the information officers and procedures one can seek amendments of information.
Mr Sulemana Braimah,
Executive Director of MFWA, said we have spent two decades in passing the law
just to have access to information.
He expressed the
hope that this would help ensure transparency and accountability, saying that
Ghana would copy the best practices from their counterparts in Sierra Leone,
Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia among others, who already applied the law.
Mr Braimah said
apart from the journalists in the Greater Accra, those in Kumasi and Tamale
would have their share of the training as well as all Municipal, Metropolitan
and District Assemblies in the Greater Accra so that can educate others on how
to use the RTI law.
GNA
