African CSOs urge Ghana, others to pass RTI law

BY EDMUND SMITH-ASANTE

NINE civil society organisations (CSOs) in Africa leading a campaign to promote the passage and implementation of Access to Information (ATI) legislation in Africa, have urged Ghana and other countries without an ATI legislation, to take urgent steps to have the law in place.

In a joint six-point statement issued after a meeting in Johannesburg on March 5 and 6, 2014, the group stated that countries that were yet to pass access to information law should use as a standard, the Model Law on Access to Information, developed by the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression and Access to Information in Africa.

The civil society group that constitutes the Working Group of the African Platform on Access to Information (APAI) is made up of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), The Africa Freedom of Information Centre (AFIC), Article 19 – West and East Africa, Highway Africa, African Editors Forum, Media Rights Agenda (MRA), Open Democracy Advisory Centre (ODAC), and the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).

In the statement copied to the Daily Graphic, the nine-member CSO group also called on the African Union (AU) to give effect to Resolution 222, adopted in Banjul, The Gambia, by the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights at the end of its 50^th Ordinary Session on May 2, 2012, at which the Commission requested the AU to consider proclaiming September 28 as International Right to Information Day in Africa, as proposed in the APAI Declaration, adopted in Cape Town, South Africa, on September 19, 2011.

The working group of the CSOs, further pressed the United Nations to endorse the APAI Declaration and proclaim September 28 of every year International Right to Information Day, as a date to raise awareness about the importance of the right of access to information throughout the world.

While acknowledging the important right to information commitments made by South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Liberia and Ghana, the CSO called on the Governments of Malawi and Sierra Leone to also adopt the access to information law and ensure strong implementation of the Freedom of Information (FOI) law in respective open government partnership (OGP) country action plans.