Peep Sierra Leone

Earlier this year, taxi drivers effectively launched a one-day boycott when they used the opportunity of swearing in of the Motor Drivers Executive's new leadership to withdraw their services.

TRC could not take up the slack and commuters endured a day of misery. Since then we have been trying to find out exactly how many buses are on the roads and where they ply.

Who can deny that this is necessary information which the public is entitled to?

After all, once upon a time, five cents could take you right round the Peninsular by RTC bus! What has happened to the German, Iranian, and India (Tata) and Libyan buses? Why should 1.5 million inhabitants of Freetown be solely dependent on private taxis and rusting ramshackled mini buses we call poda-podas?

We have gone High and Low in an effort to find this information. It has not been forthcoming.

Despite the fact that RTC is a publicly owned corporation, subsidized by tax-payers money, it has been almost impossible to obtain even the most basic knowledge about their operations.

This is true of most government institutions which do not feel they have the obligation to disclose any information to the public at all…

It is against this background that the need for a Freedom of Information Act is compelling.

The Society for Democratic Initiatives (SDI) has battled for this FOI Act for years.  But we are no nearer to it in 2009 than we were five years ago.

Politicians of both major parties seem to be dragging their feet over creation of an FOI Act. They are well aware that such a law would expose corruption and incompetence in High Places.

There was no explicit guarantee of a FOI Act in the 2007 APC Manifesto. But we certainly, from the signals received, expected that the new government would have initiated one in the two years plus since they came to power.

SDI notes that when leader of the Opposition, Mr. Ernest Bai Koroma enthusiastically endorsed the idea of FOI. He seems to have cooled to the idea since becoming President…

Instead we have an 'Open Government Initiative’ which was borne out of His Excellency President Ernest Bai Koroma's Bumbuna Presidential Retreat in January 2008.

At Bumbuna, he expressed a commitment to ensure that democracy, the Rule of Law and free-flow of information through open channels of communication amongst the three organs of Government and between Government and the people prevail during his presidency.

OGI is a direct response to the President's expressed commitment. Through OGI, information will flow freely between Government and the public (according to State House sources).

We would question how a series of Town Hall style meetings by Ministers, Parliamentarians etc can guarantee Sierra Leoneans access to information.

Firstly the dignitaries get to chose exactly what they wish to tell us… We do not have the requisite background information even to pose searching questions.

Secondly only those citizens 'entitled' to be in attendance can go. Presumably these are Sierra Leoneans with a background in western education and time on their hands.

Absolutely nothing prevents a minister/parliamentarian rearing up on his/her hind legs and bleating the most misleading propaganda or inaccurate information. Whereas a Freedom of Information Act compels governments to disclose documents confirming/affirming leads which the media may already have an open Government Initiative only affirms what the government may wish to tell us.

"The media is a vital organ for dissemination/examination of government's policies and programmes”.

With correct access to documentary information and simple investigation, any journalist can affirm the Truth/Untruth of anything the government is doing. With an FOI Law there would be no need for expensive Commissions of Inquiry to check an administration's actions after the event.

Obviously FOI would not disclose information pertinent to national security/defense.

But it would compel State officials to disclose information that should be in the public domain. How many buses RTC runs and how much it collects from fares should surely be a matter which the public is entitled to know.

We truly believe that the main reason why we do not have an FOI law is because people in authority have things to hide.

It makes absolutely no sense, for example, for public officials to declare their Assets only to the Anti-Corruption Commission which is, by law, forbidden to divulge this information to the public!

How can we ascertain, or indeed how can the ACC itself find out, whether these declarations are true or false?

At present there are only rumours and innuendos to work on. All information on assets of public officials should be placed in the public domain!

If you can't stand the Heat of Public Disclosure - then you shouldn't be in the 'kitchen' of Public Life as ACC Advisory Board chair, Dr. Alfred Fawundu so aptly put it…