In a bid to demonstrate government’s commitment to transparency, President Bharrat Jagdeo has announced that long promised freedom of information legislation will be introduced in another two months.
His statement came in response to a question from a regional journalist during a news conference in Trinidad on Saturday night at the Fifth Summit of the Americas.
He told reporters that the legislation is currently being drafted and that it is expected in Parliament shortly, noting that “it is going to happen”.
Jagdeo played down the suggestion that Guyana has not held to commitments it made at past summits over the years saying that there have been notable changes at the level of Parliament, and that his government has gone beyond many other countries in terms of change to the constitutional system.
He pointed to the term limits for presidents and the standing committees in the house that allow for shared chairmanship by government and opposition parties.
He said too, that there is a parliamentary management committee in Guyana with equal numbers from government and opposition which the Speaker of the House chairs.
Jagdeo’s administration had not acted on the Freedom of Bill (FOI) tabled in Parliament by Alliance For Change (AFC) leader, Raphael Trotman, which has been languishing in the house for two years now.
The AFC leader was yesterday cautious in reacting to the President’s statement saying that he will hold his excitement until the bill is actually tabled, but he expressed a willingness to withdraw his draft provided that a new bill is introduced.
“… the legislation is important and it matters not who tables it in Parliament”, Trotman said while emphasizing that the bill is important to Guyana as a check to corruption and a key tool in promoting transparency in governance.
Trotman said that the bill also empowers the people of Guyana to access necessary information, but according to him the government has withheld its support for the legislation despite the fact that every other political party in the country has committed to it in principle. He said that government has given many commitments in the past but failed to keep any.
Still, Trotman called Jagdeo’s announcement, “the first sign of victory” for the unrelenting campaign by his party, which intensified on Saturday with an ad in the Trinidad Express.
“For the President to make such a statement at an international forum is a first step, but we acknowledged it as first sign of victory”, Trotman said.
Trotman tabled his bill in May 2006 prior to the general and regional elections in August 2006 and then again as an AFC MP in November 2006. Since then the FOI Bill has been appearing on the parliamentary order paper though it has not come up for debate.
In May last year, Canadian, Toby Mendel of Article 19 – a global campaign for free expression – who has authored a book and several articles on freedom of information laws, said it is embarrassing for any country that claims to be a democracy not to have a freedom of information law.
He was speaking at a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA)-sponsored workshop.
