The Right to Information Commission has bemoaned the inadequate source of funding needed to smoothly facilitate its work.
In an interview with Beach News, the Board Chairman of the RTI Commission, Justice K.A. Ofori Atta, said funding has been a major challenge hindering the commission from fully carrying out its duties effectively.
“As an institution, funding has been a major challenge. Even though we have three or four sources, government is the sole institutions that funds our operations…there are a few benevolent organizations who come to support us in cash and in kind.”
“The government is doing its part by giving what has been allocated us but we find it inadequate, so we will have to resort to other sources of funding”, he stressed.
Touching on the nationwide sensitization exercise by the Commission, he furthered that, the inadequacy of funds limits the work of the commission.
“It is limiting us with respect to what we can do as a Commission. We could have toured all the regions by now and even set up our regional offices, but here we are at our twelfth -we have four more to be done. We will continue to do the best we can with what we are been given currently.”
RTI Commission to institute actions against institutions who have failed to pay penalties.
On the back of the Right to Information (RTI) Commission has administering penalties on 13 state institutions close to GH¢1 million for failing to release information requested through the RTI law, the Executive Secretary of the Commission, Yaw Sarpong Boateng Esq, in an interview with Beach News at the public lecture held in Takoradi by his outfit to sensitize the public on its law said, “some have paid; I can’t say off head. Some have also failed to pay, but we don’t sit back, we have instituted actions in court to recover the penalties that we have levied against the institutions that haven’t paid to the Commission.”
The RTI law was passed in March 2019 and came into full force in 2020. It was passed with the aim of facilitating public access to information, promoting accountability and transparency and reducing corruption in the public sector.
