The majority leader in parliament, Mr Alban S.K. Bagbin, has assured the public that the Right to Information Bill (RTI), 2013 will  be passed, hopefully, before the end of the year.

He has, therefore, urged ministers whose sectors are connected in one way or the other to the bill to avail themselves during the consideration stage in order to make inputs.

Read more:Postal Packets and Telecommunication Messages Bill: Government to spy on you with new law

Presenting the Businesses Statement of Parliament for next week on the floor of the House yesterday, Mr Bagbin said statements made to the effect that the House was not committed to passing the bill were false.

He also said the volume of work on the  bill was huge and required more time.

He noted that the bill had also gone through a lot of metamorphosis, adding that the African Union passed a resolution that all legislatures of member states had to pass RTI legislations after which the various States had to fine-tune the  bill to suit their specific needs.

According to Mr Bagbin, the House had to carefully consider all the technical details and the proposed amendments before  passing the bill.

Parliament’s feet-dragging

As he was making statements on the bill, the Member for Tema East, Mr Daniel Nii Kwartei Titus-Glover, rose to his feet and stated, among others, that on a regular basis, he had been questioned and sometimes accused by his constituents that he, and other members of the House were reluctant to pass the bill.

The Speaker, Mr Edward Doe Adjaho, in reply, stated that it was the responsibility of the member to explain to his constituents that the bill required careful scrutiny and that the volume of work on it was huge.

See more:Resist Mahama's pro-spy legislation- Efia MP charges Ghanaians

He said the proposed amendments alone were 52 pages.

Transitional Bill

Related: Publish declared assets of Ghanaian officials – GII