Making RTI real

The Right to Information Act (RTI) is to be rolled out with much fanfare this week, just a day ahead of Independence Day. From 3 February the public will be empowered to submit applications under RTI to a multitude of Government departments and State-run institutions.    

But for this to be effective, the rules on fees and appeals, as well as the regulations, must also be gazetted by the ministry. The former are drafted by the commission, while the latter are drawn up by the ministry in consultation with the commission. According to reports published over the weekend, the Media Ministry is preparing to issue them within the next few days. However, funding has become a point of contention.  

Last week a supplementary estimate to Parliament sought the approval of the House to provide an additional sum of Rs. 1.8 billion to cover the expenses of the President. Of this, just Rs. 3 million is to meet the recurrent expenditure of the newly-established RTI Commission. Unlike for other independent commissions, the 2017 Budget did not contain a separate line item for the RTI Commission. 

Activists, including the Sri Lanka Press Institute which supported RTI, have criticised this move pointing out that as much as Rs. 25 million has been allocated to the Media Ministry to implement legislation but it is unclear how much of this will be allocated to the commission to ensure that it runs in an efficient and accountable manner. 

Government efforts to appoint as many as 8,000 information officers covering all key Government departments and institutions must be lauded but it also has a responsibility to outline the funding arrangements for RTI and ensure that it is sustainably done to limit political interference in the commission. If transparency is lost so early in this process then confidence in the entire RTI system could also be dented. Given the massive amount of work, time and energy that has already been invested in this process, letting it stall at this point would indeed be a national tragedy.     

Public authorities across which RTI will become operational include Government ministries; a body or office created by the Constitution (including the offices of the President and Prime Minister) or any written law or statute of a provincial council; a local authority; a Government department; a public corporation; any department, authority or institution established or created by a provincial council; and all courts, tribunals and institutions that administer justice.

The Act covers all companies in which the State or a public corporation holds 25% or otherwise has a controlling interest. It also applies to organisations carrying out a statutory or public function or service, under contract, partnership, agreement or license from the Government or its agencies or from a local body but only to the extent of activities covered by that statutory or public function or service.

The reason RTI has been lauded as the 9th best information law in the world is because it covers more departments and places fewer restrictions on the type of information that can be requested from institutions. But its implementation is heavily dependent on the effectiveness of the RTI Commission. Proper and sustainable funding of the commission and its interlinked framework will ultimately decide the value of RTI in Sri Lanka.