General News of Sunday, 17 March 2019

Source: mynewsgh.com

RTI Bill: Ghanaian MPs only good at approving car loans - Preacher blasts lawmakers

Head Pastor of the Alabaster International Ministries, Prophet Dr Kofi Oduro Head Pastor of the Alabaster International Ministries, Prophet Dr Kofi Oduro

The Head Pastor of the Alabaster International Ministries, Prophet Dr Kofi Oduro has slammed Parliament for its slothful posturing towards the passing of the Right to Information Bill, MyNewsGh.com reports.

“I’m asking our parliamentarians, Right to Information Bill, when will it be passed”, he quizzed, while delivering a sermon at the Tesano Centre of the church on Sunday morning and monitored by MyNewsGh.com.

“If we were passing car loans, you would have passed it long ago; when will the Right to Information Bill be passed? Honourables! I’m telling you the mind of God”, he lashed out at Ghanaian MPs.

Though the right to information bill is a fundamental human right enshrined in the 1992 Constitution, it has taken Ghana’s Parliament more than two decades to pass the RTI Bill into Law.

The Bill which is still in the consideration stage after it was laid before Parliament in 2013 has yet to receive any deliberate commitment by governments past and president.

President Nana Akufo Addo, Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and Speaker of Parliament, Prof Aaron Mike Oquaye have all assured of deadlines for the passing of the bill into law but never saw the light of day.

Not even pressure from the media and civil society organisations have compelled Parliament to expedite processes to make the RTI law a reality.

Some MPs have even had cause to argue that, the RTI Bill if passed into law would expose government’s secrets and have vowed to resist its passage.

“I know of no confused line of leadership than the Government of Ghana; this government starts something, the other abolishes it and start another thing”, Prophet Kofi Oduro preached.

He decried the lack of consistency in our political dispensation and lambasted successive governments for toying with Ghana’s education sector.



“We can go for 4 years and now we are going for 3 years and then even in the 3 years we have green, blue and yellow tracks; some people go for 3 months, others come for sabbatical leave for 3 months and that’s the kind of thing”, the reason he said is that, “we don’t have a national policy and a national agenda”. He observed.

The hope of realising a Ghana where basic human rights would be respected and MPs championed the course of their constituents, 62 years after independence remains a dream.