The Central Regional Director of the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Tetteh Tuwor has observed that the passage of the Right to Information (RTI) Bill into law will support the commission to actualise its vision of ensuring probity, accountability, good governance and transparency.
He expressed delight at the passage of the Bill into law to enable the citizenry to have no excuse not to seek for information and to serve as an incentive to the fight against corruption.
Parliament on March 26, 2019 passed the Right RTI Bill into law to grant the citizenry access to public information which is expected to provide guidelines for the operationalisation of guaranteed constitutional rights to information held by public and private institutions, subject to exemptions necessary and consistent with protection of public interest in democratic society.
According to Mr Tuwor “governance should be transparent, the rule of law and other forms of governance structures that exist must be transparent to the citizenry, the passage of the RTI is good for the nation because it will help the citizenry to enjoy their rights.
“Though sections of the public especially, the media might be dissatisfied with some provisions and articles in the RTI Bill, its passage is a step towards creating the enabling environment to fight corruption and must be accepted.
“It is good parliament passed it, let us implement it, when there are challenges, we will talk about it and see how they can be amended it, every amendment or new policies are without challenges but addressed as and when they arise,” Mr Tuwor intimated.
He called on Ghanaians to support and make adequate use of the RTI law and not seen as something that would only benefit the media and civil society organisations but the public saying “the public must strive to know their rights and responsibilities under the law and ensure its compliance.
“We now have the power to request for documents such as contracts but we need to understand what the law says so as to know our rights and responsibilities,” Mr Tuwor cautioned. –GNA
