Information Minister, Mr Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has shed light on the supervisory role of the Ministry in the implementation and enforcement of the Right to Information (RTI) bill which has been passed.
“In giving life to Article 21(1f), the Attorney General was the one who was designated to bring the bill to Parliament. Now that life has been given to it, it is now merely an administrative process that is why you are going through the structure that is responsible for information unit and information officers,” he explained.
According to Mr Nkrumah, the role his Ministry would be executing would be purely administrative and not to manipulate contents of information to government’s advantage.
“There is no interface that the Ministry of Information has to change the nature of the information that is available or to even put a spin on it. It is just an administrative process,” he stated.
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Addressing the media on Sunday, the sector Minister said the supervisory role is in line with the laws of the country.
“Whoever says the Ministry of Information administering the part of the RTI gives government an opportunity to twist information has not read the bill and does not understand how it works,” he noted.
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Following the passage of the RTI bill on Tuesday, the Minority has heavily criticised the decision of the government to make the Information Minister, the supervising Minister, instead of the Attorney General.
According to Minority leader, Mr Haruna Iddrisu, this will affect the credibility of the policy.
“I believe that the government has already lost it because the shepherding Minister has been reduced to the Ministry of Information. Right to Information is not about propaganda or government information or government misinformation. It is about the right of access to information to aid in exposure,” he stated.
“Its about what decisions the Executive and Parliament and others may take, so in my view, to substitute the Attorney General for the Minister of Information itself waters down the policy credibility of the Right to Information,” Mr Iddrisu admonished.
Source: Ghana/ Adomonline.com/ Gertrude Otchere
