Media Coalition Storms Regions To Whip up Support For RTI Bill
Participants in Cape Coast
The Media Coalition on the Right To Information (RTI) Bill, represented by Parliamentary News Africa (PNAfrica), and with funding from Star Ghana Foundation, is currently on a tour of five regions to gunner support for the passage of the bill.
The tour dubbed, Regional RTI Media Sensitization Workshops started on Monday in the Volta and Ashanti regions, with Brong Ahafo and Central regions following suite on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively. The Northern Region climaxing it on Thursday.
The purpose of the sensitization workshops is to educate radio programme hosts, editors, journalists and producers of morning shows on the RTI Bill to enable them adequately inform and empower their listeners, viewers and readers. This is expected to raise enough nationwide public awareness about the bill and court regional public support to pressurize Members of Parliament to pass the bill into a credible law.
Resource Persons from the Media Coalition on RTI took participants through the journey of the RTI Bill in parliament, the memorandum to the bill, and the success story of the media coalition.
At the end of the regional RTI media sensitization workshops, all the beneficial regions are expected to come out with their own advocacy campaign strategy that would result in the passage of the bill.
The Right to Information is a fundamental human right guaranteed by the Constitution of the Republic of Ghana and recognized as a right by international conventions on human rights. Ghana’s choice of democratic governance requires an active participation by all in the governance process, thereby making the right to information particularly relevant. It is only when those who are to participate in governance are well informed that they can contribute meaningfully.
However, due to the lack of political will, for about two decades now, successive governments have failed to ensure the passage of an RTI law that will give meaning to this constitutional right. Several versions of an RTI Bill have been presented to Parliament since 2010, yet the House of Representatives have failed to take the Bills through all the stages of the law-making process. The latest version of the Bill, which was laid in May 2018, is currently at the Consideration Stage in Parliament.
Volta Region Participants