President Bharrat Jagdeo has said that promised Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation would likely be introduced in the house in October, after the parliamentary recess.
“It’s being drafted,” Jagdeo said when asked about the status of the legislation after a news conference last Friday.
He had initially given a two-month timetable for the tabling of the bill when asked by international journalists at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad, in late April. “As soon as we come out of the recess,” he said, explaining that there is not enough time before the recess to present the bill.
“When we come out of recess [the] Freedom of Information [bill] will definitely be there and maybe early next year broadcast legislation,” he added.
The administration has failed to act on the two-year-old FOI bill tabled by AFC leader Raphael Trotman, who said the announcement of plans to table legislation was an attempt to save face after questions about governance, corruption, and transparency in Guyana were raised by the party in a full-page advertisement placed in the Trinidad Express during the Summit.
The main opposition PNCR-1G as well as GAP/ROAR have both publicly pledged their support for the bill and according to Trotman the AFC had always indicated its willingness to engage the governing party on advancing the legislation.
The AFC recently issued a public reminder to the administration of Jagdeo’s promise to table long-awaited legislation.
It also stated that the government should remember that the party has already placed legislation before the National Assembly designed to achieve the same objective of providing access to information to members of the public.
AFC MP Sheila Holder, noting that the government would be using the Trinidad & Tobago model as a precedent just as the AFC, emphasised that since President Jagdeo made his promise in a very public and international way, the eyes of the free world are on him and his government.
“The AFC is more than willing to have the government endorse, and adopt its bill in order to expedite the process,” she added.
Meanwhile, Presidential Advisor on Governance Gail Teixeira has told Stabroek News that the legislation is being drafted and would be tabled in the National Assembly shortly. When informed that the two-month timetable given by the President is approaching, she said, “These things take time.”
She insisted that work is continuing on the bill and it would be introduced in the assembly upon completion.
