From Alfred Adams
The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), last Saturday, held a workshop for three tertiary institutions to educate and update them on the current stage of the Right To Information Bill (RTI).
The workshop saw the three tertiary students, drawn from the Takoradi Polytechnic, Nursing and Midwifery Training College and the Holy Child Teacher Training College, all based in Sekondi Takoradi.
The RTI is a fundamental human rights bill guaranteed by the Constitution, and is being championed by CHRI and other civil society organisations to push Parliament pass the bill into law.
When passed into law, the RTI will empower citizens to demand certain information from public institutions, which, hitherto, would be difficult to come by.
The purpose of the workshop was aimed at creating awareness on the citizen’s right to access information, and building a constituency committed to seeking information, based on provisions in existing laws.
Addressing the participants, a member of the CHRI, Madam Esther Ahulu, who took the students through the RTI, told the workshop that the RTI was enshrined in the 1992 constitution, and was never alien to the country.
She explained that the RTI, as it stood, meant two things, right to information and duty to give information and make it available.
She further explained that the RTI was the touchstone of all human rights information. This is because, without information, there was no way other human rights would be complemented.
Madam Ahulu, however, told the participants that the passage of the RTI would eventually lead to preventing corruption, promote people centered rights and development, and as well involve citizen participation.
On her part, Madam Mina Mensah, speaking on concerns on the RTI Bill, said access to information was the foundation upon which to build good governance, transparency, accountability and eliminate corruption.
Awareness creation on the need to proactively disclose and seek information has therefore, become increasingly necessary in the quest to advance democracy and rapid development.
The workshop was made up of presentations by resource persons, who showed a video documentary on the RTI. The video documentary threw light on how to access information.
The student participants, at the end of the workshop, were given materials about the RTI to go and propagate the story to their colleagues in school.
They also asked questions bordering on the RTI. In the end, it was obvious that the students were not much in the know about the RTI.
