The Minister for Information, Hon. Kojo Oppong Nkrumah has charged the academic fraternity as well as media practitioners to utilize the Right To Information (RTI) law as captured in Act 989 of the 1992 Constitution to help them obtain credible and factual information from state institutions.
“Mr. Speaker, may I take advantage of the opportunity given me to reach out to the whole country particularly the academic community. A lot of our young people have complained about difficulties in getting access to information when they are preparing their dissertations and so on because a lot of institutions operate as though they are doing you a favor.
“The RTI Act gives you legal cover to apply for information from public institutions for academic purposes. Also, to our colleagues in the media, we want to encourage a lot more use of the Act and a lot less resort to speculation and hear say. The RTI Act grants you to by law access to information for purposes of media work,” he added.
The Minister made the remarks when he provided updates on the progress of the implementation of the law since its inception in 2020 on the floor of Parliament on Tuesday, March 15, 2022.
The law he said allowed both media practitioners and persons in academia to get access to credible information with which they can use in dissertations and media works.
He mentioned that the law since its introduction has made remarkable progress noting that from the time the implementation of the law commenced to date, public institutions have received a total of two hundred and twenty-three (223) RTI requests so far.
Hon. Oppong Nkrumah indicated that per interim figures collated from the various RTI offices of state institutions in 2021 alone, a total of 129 requests for information were submitted by individuals and institutions and were received by 47 institutions.
Out of this number, 87 were received from individuals while 42 were received from institutions.
