Ghana Cabinet approves Right to Information Bill

Cabinet on Thursday approved the passage of the Right to Information Bill and forwarded it to Parliament for approval, Mr Mahama Ayariga, Minister of Information and Media Relations has announced.

He said President Mahama believes in transparency and would therefore give his assent as soon as Parliament approved the Bill.

Mr Ayariga who announced this at the daily briefing at the Flagstaff House, on Friday appealed to Parliament to expedite action on the Bill to further consolidate the country’s democracy.

The Right to Information Bill has lingered on in the country’s political corridors for some time, attracting numerous comments from both politicians and civil society.

Its passage would facilitate the dissemination of information.

The Minister announced that Cabinet had also approved a Legislative Instrument (LI) proposal on local content to be passed into law that would empower small scale local enterprises to partner the foreign and multi-national corporations.

Mr Ayariga said the passage of the LI into law would also grant licenses and human resource development to local small companies to gain a substantial amount of contracts from their well established counterparts.

He said the passage of the local content would also compel foreign companies to use the local materials to empower the local manufacturing corporate entities.

The Minister said the setting up of the Revenue Taskforce had yielded dividends as it had led to the arrests at the country’s entry points.

Source: GNA