iWatch Africa backs petition to Geneva to push Ghana to pass the RTI Law

Gideon Sarpong — Wed, 18 Oct 2017 18:28:23 +0000

The Right to Information Coalition (RTI Coalition) Ghana has urged diplomats at the United Nations to make recommendations to Ghana to pass the RTI Bill.

The call was made during a presentation made to the UN Permanent missions in Geneva on Tuesday October 10th, by the Human Rights NGO Forum, of which iWatch Africa is a member.

“The NGO Forum noted that even though Ghana had made significant progress in implementing some of the recommendations made by the diplomats in 2012, a lot still remains to be done by Ghana to ensure compliance with its obligations under various regional and international law,” a press statement released by the RTI Coalition indicates.

Read the full statement below.

RTI COALITION URGES PERMANENT MISSIONS IN GENEVA TO MAKE RECOMMENDATIONS FOR GHANA TO PASS THE RIGHT TO INFORMATION (RTI) LAW

The Right to Information Coalition (RTI Coalition) Ghana has urged diplomats at the United Nations Universal Periodic Review (UN-UPR) Pre-session in Geneva, Switzerland, to make recommendations to Ghana to pass the RTI Bill when Ghana appears before the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) next month for the 3rd review of its human rights record.

The call was made during a presentation made to the UN Permanent missions in Geneva on Tuesday October 10th, by the Human Rights NGO Forum, of which the Coalition is a member. The NGO Forum noted that even though Ghana had made significant progress in implementing some of the recommendations made by the diplomats in 2012, a lot still remains to be done by Ghana to ensure compliance with its obligations under various regional and international law.

Ghana had accepted recommendations made by the Canada and Austria during the country’s review in 2012 for the passage of the RTI law but till date Ghana has not complied with this recommendation. Members of the Coalition who were present in Geneva used the opportunity to engage individual missions and presented them with factsheets of the current right to information regime in Ghana and why the government of Ghana needs to hasten the passage of the RTI Bill. Some of the permanent missions engaged include the USA, Germany, Haiti and Denmark. The one on one engagement was to ensure that these missions make specific recommendations for Ghana to pass the RTI Bill currently before Cabinet, into law.

The advocacy for the passage of the RTI Bill has been ongoing for over a decade; all efforts to get government both past and present to pass the legislation has not yielded the required result. The Bill was thoroughly reviewed and amended by the previous Parliament (6th Parliament), but the 6th Parliament could not pass the Bill into law until it lapsed in 2017 following the 2016 elections. Presently, the Bill has reverted to cabinet and from January 2017 till date, cabinet is yet to approve for the Bill to be tabled before the 7th Parliament, which is currently sitting for its last session for the year 2017.

Ghana is expected to present a report in November 2017 to the UNHRC with updates on the state of human rights in the country and the status of implementation of previous recommendations received and accepted by the Government of Ghana including the country’s efforts to ensure the passage of the RTI legislation.

ISSUED BY THE COALITION ON THE RIGHT TO INFORMATION, GHANA, OCTOBER 16TH, 2017

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RTI bill passage necessary for accountability – iWatch Africa

Gideon Sarpong — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 16:05:36 +0000

The founders of iWatch Africa Project have highlighted the critical need for the passage of the Right to Information (RTI) Bill to make information more accessible to the public to ensure accountability and transparency.

They said one of the lessons learnt during the first one-month of the iWatch project was the challenge in accessing critical information for their reviews.

“One of the lessons learnt is that, public officials are not very forthcoming when critical information is needed,” said Mr Gideon Sarpong, Co-Founder /Policy and Content Analyst at iWatch Africa.

The Project, which is aimed at putting a spotlight on government’s promises and monitoring their implementation in communities across Ghana and promote citizen participation in governance in order to hold their leaders accountable, is spearheaded by a group of the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI).

Mr. Sarpong, at the review and evaluation session of the Project, lauded its impact in offering citizens the opportunity to objectively assess the performance of the government through its unified gauge accountability reports.

This, he said, would deepen the democratic process in Ghana, adding that the Project would continue to assess government’s commitments in the 2017 Budget Statement.

The Project reviewed commitments in Health, Education, Government Expenditure and Job Creation during the one month period.

“We look forward to expanding our focus areas to include procurement and SOEs in 2018,” Mr Sarpong said.

He raised concerns about the management of the public purse, which he said was not encouraging after review of several reports by the Auditor General.

“The attorney general has a mandate to recover all monies that were illegally expended,” he noted.

Mr. Sarpong said the iWatch Africa Team was engaging the Ministry of Information to find ways of addressing some of the challenges that they faced during the Project, especially with regard to access to information.

He added that they were also liaising with the Ghana Integrity Initiative on the way forward and how to sustain and scale up the Project in the future.

Ms. Sara V. Stealy, the Press Attaché at the United States’ Embassy in Ghana, commended the team for their hard work and said the focus areas tied in with the Embassy’s work in Ghana.

The use of digital media, including social media on the Project was good for shining the light on the issues identified.

She added that the work of the team represented former President Barack Obama’s vision for the YALI Project.

Source: GNA

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Right to Information Bill Archives - iWatch Africa

iWatch Africa backs petition to Geneva to push Ghana to pass the RTI Law

The Right to Information Coalition (RTI Coalition) Ghana has urged diplomats at the United Nations to make recommendations to Ghana to pass the RTI Bill.

RTI bill passage necessary for accountability – iWatch Africa