The Federal Ministry of Justice has called on Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to appoint desk officers for Freedom of Information (FOI) Act to ensure greater compliance with its provisions.
Mr Benjamin Okolo, Head of the Freedom of Information Desk of the ministry, made the call during a roundtable with justice stakeholders on Tuesday in Abuja.
He also said that the ministry was about professionalising FOI offices/desks in all major public institutions so that the implementation of the act could be successful.
“To strengthen the act, the Attorney-General of the Federation since 2011 has developed an implementation guideline out of the act to guide public institutions on implementation.
“ One of the ways which we are strengthening the act is by talking to public institutions to set up their FOI units or a desk; where you have designated officers in charge of FOI matters,’’ he said.
Okolo said that this would ensure that requests that are coming in are attended to professionally by such officers.
He said that the ministry would further strengthen the act through capacity building of the stakeholders concerned.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the meeting was organised by Media Initiative against Injustice, Violence and Corruption, an NGO, with the support from Justice for All/DFID.
NAN also reports that FOI Act was established to make public records and information more freely accessible to citizens.
Also speaking, Dr Walter Duru, the Executive Director of the NGO, reiterated that compliance of MDAs with the FOI Act was still low.
Duru said that MDAs compliance to the FOI Act in 2014 annual reports showed that 60 MDAs submitted report out of hundreds MDAs, adding that it was the highest in four years.
According to him, it is the duty of the government to protect the interest of its citizens, saying MDAs should imbibe the tenets FOI Act and make it a companion.
He, however, called on the stakeholders to provide credible information that would guarantee a society free of corruption, injustice, promote transparency, accountability and responsiveness to the citizens.
“The Act gives every Nigerian a legal right of access to information, records, and documents held by government bodies and private bodies carrying out public functions.
“It applies to all arms of government: the Executive, Legislature and Judiciary as well as to all tiers of government: Federal, State, and Local governments.
“ Five years after the passage of the act, the level of compliance in the MDAs is embarrassingly low; in fact, the highest we have had in five years is 60 per cent and that was two years ago.
“But since 2015, the level of compliance dropped according to statistics from the Federal Ministry of Justice,’’ he said.
He said that compliance with FOI Act would also help build confidence among the citizens.
“Until we embrace the act and be committed to its implementation, it will be difficult to effectively entrench accountability and transparency in our public institutions.
In his remark, Mr Emmanuel Uche, the DFID Anti-Corruption Programme Officer, noted that the Ministry of Justice as the implementing organ for FOI Act had a role to play in ensuring increased compliance among MDAs.
“Where there is no law, there is no sin; if there is no demand for information on the part of the people that need it, then one will not blame the MDAs for not making it available.
“Because there must be a demand for you to comply; our engagement is more of strengthening both the demand side as well as the supply side of FOI Act.
“In order to increase compliance, people need to first understand that the government is in place for them; and that every institution of government; every public office is actually set up to serve the purpose of the people.
“Therefore, every agency of government, every public officer is in office to serve the purpose of the people,’’ he said.
He, therefore, urged MDAs to always provide information on the platform where the public could easily access it.
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