By Jacinta Nwachukwu
PUBLIC and Private Development Centre (PPDC) and the Federal Ministry of Justice have urged private and public institutions to actively comply with the principles of Freedom of Information Act for more accountability.
The actors made the call during a day roundtable engagement on the submission of the compliance reports on Freedom of Information (FOI) Act, 2011 by public institutions, on Tuesday in Abuja.
In her remarks, the Chief Executive Officer, PPDC, Lucy Abagi, said that the event aimed to promote transparency and accountability in governance by ensuring compliance with the Act.
Abagi said that the Act had remained a democratic instrument empowering citizens with the right to public information and fostering a culture of openness.
According to her, FOI has played an official role in the social accountability, reducing corruption and promoting public trust in government institutions.
She said over the last 10 years, PPDC had been pioneering the FOI ranking, adding that for every year, it tried to assess the proactive disclosure of ministries, departments and agencies with FOI Act.
Abagi said although while progress had been made, challenges still persisted in achieving full compliance with the Act by public institutions.
“We’ve also identified a lot of gaps; you know, when you are dealing with government, there’s always some level of transfers that happens with officers to different agencies or to different states.
“So, there’s a lot of capacity gaps, one of which is for the FOI desk officers to respond to the FOI Act requests by citizens or other organisations to actually know where monies are going to and what those monies are being used for.
“So, this training, in partnership with ministry of justice, is to begin to identify areas of gaps and challenges that need to be filled across over 150 public institutions.
“We are hoping that governments are not just spending money on the budget, or are not just easily funding without accountability.
“We want to ensure that our procurement process is right; we want to ensure that there is transparency; we want to ensure that there is reduced corruption,” she said.
Abagi also encouraged all stakeholders to consider the training as an opportunity to address challenges, share experiences and explore innovative ways of strengthening compliance.
According to her, transparency is not just a legal requirement, it is a responsibility that promotes trust and drive sustainable growth in the society.
“We are dedicated to advancing procurement transparency and improving citizens’ access to information,” she added.
Earlier, the Head of Freedom of Information Unit, ministry of justice, Mr Garuba Godwin, while giving an overview of the FOI Act, said it was applicable to all MDAs.
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Godwin said that the Act also applied to private institutions utilising public funds; hence
the need for both government and private institutions to comply with its principles.
He said that with the establishment of the Act, no public document would become secret officially, saying that every Nigerian citizen had the right to access information from public documents.
“Last year, we had about 91 public institutions that complied with the release of government information.
“The honorable minister of justice has taken administrative action to ensure that this year, if not half of the total number of the public institutions we have in this country, we should have a majority of them complying.
“Last year, we engaged about 100, and this year, we are engaging about 300; so they have come to the knowledge that government activities are no longer secret.
“Citizens should have access to exactly what the government is doing, and if you look at the presidency, the president also came out to hold ministers and heads of MDAs accountable for their activities,” he said.
Godwin, however, said that access to government information record was not in all circumstances, as there were some exemptions to the Act.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the training was organised by the centre, in collaboration with the ministry of justice, with the support of MacArthur Foundation. (NAN)
