Kojo Oppong Nkrumah
The Minister for Information, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, has revealed that a total of 223 Right to Information (RTI) requests have been received so far by public institutions.
According to him, 85 requests for information were made in 2020 by individuals and institutions, and received by 32 public institutions.
Out of the 85 applications, he said 34 requests, representing 40%, were submitted by individuals, while 36 information, representing 42%, were submitted by institutions.
“My office is still making all efforts to receive detailed information from some public institutions on 15 (18%) of these submissions to determine the number of applications from individuals and institutions,” he told Parliament yesterday.
Member of Parliament (MP) for Dormaa East, Paul Apreku Twum-Barimah, had asked the minister how many individuals and institutions had made use of the RTI Act to request information from the various public institutions.
“Although I am yet to present the Annual Report for 2021 in Parliament this year, permit me, Mr. Speaker, to brief members of the House on the interim figures we have gathered so far from the Information Officers across public institutions,” the minister submitted.
“I must emphasise that these are provisional figures. The final figures will be contained in the annual report that would be presented to Parliament by June 2022,” Mr. Nkrumah pointed out.
He continued that a total of 129 requests for information were submitted by individuals and institutions, and were received by 47 public institutions.
He asserted that out of the 129 applications received, 87 were received from individuals while 42 were received from institutions.
He added that a total of 10 requests for information were submitted by individuals and institutions, and received by seven public institutions as at the end of January, 2022.
“Out of the 10 applications received, 5 (50%) were received from individuals, while 5 (50%) were received from institutions,” Mr. Nkrumah said.
In August 2019, Parliament passed the Right to Information Act, 2019 (Act 989), which President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo promptly assented to, with the law’s full implementation beginning in 2020.
The minister said the country had made remarkable progress thus far.
BY Ernest Kofi Adu