Minister of Information Kojo Oppong-Nkrumah says access to information is a prerequisite tool for democracy to thrive.
At a public forum to mark the Right to Information Week on Tuesday, he said by law, every public institution was required to have an information unit, adding that accordingly, information units had been set up in 539 public institutions across Ghana.
The 74th UN General Assembly, in recognition of this fact, has thus ordained 28th September every year, as the International Day for Universal Access to Information.”
Mr. Oppong-Nkrumah said one key role of the act, was to prepare public institutions to deliver on their obligations and the Ministry of information had established the Access to information Division within the Information Services Department.
The division was responsible for training and deploying Access to Information (ATI) Officers to Ministries, Departments and Agencies, to facilitate access to information, upon request. The division also provided technical support to the ATI officers on their activities.
Mr. Oppong Nkrumah revealed that the division had so far trained 1055 officers, who were tasked to facilitate and process access to information requests.
“Ghanaians are major stakeholders as far as RTI Law is concerned” he remarked.
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He said the Ministry through the information Services Department ATI division, also developed an online records management system, to provide IT net solutions that would help to manage online applications under the RTI 2019.
The Minister said even though it was intended for the RTIC to have representation in every region and district, the online platform would also enable citizens access information effectively.
One thing that has attracted attention in respect of the RTI Law is the absence of a legislated fees and charges regime that will standardize application cost.
To this end, Mr Oppong Nkrumah indicated that one of the review of the application dealt with by the commission has also dealt with this kind of matter.
This he noted has energized their efforts to put before the committee that will soon lay before parliament through the finance ministry, the proposal of fees and charges that will govern RTI applications moving forward.
Source: Vera Siripi/ATLFMNEWS
