Parliamentary committee chair calls for punishment for public officers failing to comply with ATI
Chairperson of Media Committee in Parliament has bemoaned failure by some public institutions to comply with Access to Information (ATI) Act and has since called for stiff punishment to the responsible officers.
Susan Dossi said in parliament some public institutions are not complying with ATI Act, saying this is against the fundamental human rights of the citizenry.
Dossi said institutions which are failing to comply with ATI indicate a clear picture of incompetency, and these institutions need to be punished.
“We believe that access to information is a human right and it’s fundamental but if institutions are deliberately not sharing information, then we have a big problem. As public institutions, they receive money from the government and they need to provide information on how they have used it,” she said.
Responding to the recommendation made by the Media Committee, Minister of Information and Digitization Moses Kunkuyu said some public institutions are failing to comply with some provisions within ATI due to failure to interpret the laws that guide its implementation.
Kunkuyu further said the recommendation given by the parliamentary committee to give penalties to institutions failing to abide by the law is not good, saying institutions should rather be given time to synchronize with the provisions within the law.
“There are indeed some institutions that are taking long to give out information when the public needs it.
“Of course there are some restrictions within the law itself in what sort of information to be given out but there are reports that some institutions are withholding information that should be available as empowered by law.
“We should not only look into the issue of penalties for those not giving the information timely only but there are also some elements that have necessitated that call and one of them is that there are other laws that were enacted after ATI and those laws are providing length period of time at which information can be accessed, and this is contradicting some provisions of this law,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Media Committee has urged government institutions to start abiding by the provisions within ATI, saying this is one of the ways of curbing corruption in the country.
