The Right to Information (RTI) Commission has warned that some public institutions risk facing sanctions for failing to file annual reports detailing their activities under the RTI Act, 2019 (Act 989), for the preceding year.
The commission maintained that although a mandatory requirement, many public institutions and private firms that received public resources or provided a public function, had failed to comply with the law.
It explained that the main purpose of the reporting regime was to help account for RTI-related activities in all public institutions and be able to assess the problems that arose out of the implementation of the Act.
The Executive Secretary of the RTI Commission, Yaw Sarpong Boateng, in an interview with the Daily Graphic in Accra stated that when the reports got filed they did not just sit with the commission but rather informed a reporting line which would be presented to Parliament through the Minister of Information.
“The minister is required to make a statement on the Act on or before June 30 each year and that is one of the reasons why we need the report to be able to meet the obligation.
“For non-production of information under the law, the commission has been empowered to prosecute individuals, but institutions would attract penalties in monetary value,” he said.
Act 989
Section 77 of Act 989 stipulates that a public institution shall within 60 days after December 31 each year submit a written report on its activities under the law during the preceding year to the commission.
The report shall include the number of applications for information during the reporting period; number of applications approved and those rejected together with the reasons for the rejection; the number of reviews requested; those granted and the ones dismissed, together with the reasons, and number of applications that went into the court for judicial reviews and the results of the reviews.
The institutions can file their report through email or hard copies at the commission.
Publications
Mr Boateng noted that it had been the practice that at the beginning of each year the commission as a way of reminding institutions would cause a publication to be made in the dailies, or on its website and online portals to encourage public institutions to meet the requirement.
He said the commission was not interested in the failure of the institutions to file their reports to enforce penalties but was rather objective in getting the information to further build the implementation regime.
“So far, the public institutions which have become aware of the reporting regime are keeping to the timelines, and this year we will make it our objective to ensure that within the reporting period most institutions are able to meet the requirement.
“It is a new Act and most institutions are still learning to come to terms with it, and so for now, we are not thinking they are becoming recalcitrant; maybe they do not know and for this reason we want to create more awareness.
“At a point where it becomes prevalent and all the institutions comply, it would mean that those which are failing are doing it on purpose and the commission would apply the whip,” he said.
He added that public institutions that filed their annual reports in compliance of the law had increased from 50 in 2020 to 400.
Success so far
The executive secretary stated that the obligations of the commission under the Act was to sustain awareness of the RTI regime and for that reason had visited and held public fora in all the 16 regions of the country.
He said the commission had also managed to get all the regions to activate the right to information which was guaranteed under the 1992 Constitution.
In that regard, he said the commission had opened a regional office in the Ashanti and Bono regions with plans to start operations in the Upper East and Western regions this year.
He said that awareness creation was the most critical aspect of the RTI Act’s implementation because without knowledge of their rights it would be difficult to appreciate the impact.
Special arrangement
Mr Boateng encouraged public institutions to limit the bureaucracies when it came to application or request for information to help accelerate the implementation of the RTI regime.
“When you examine most of the cases that have been filed at the commission, you will realise that it is the bureaucracies that cause the delay and not the institution not wanting to provide the information,” he said.
He, therefore, urged public institutions to make special arrangements for RTI requests so that it would not go through the regular bureaucracies.
