As the government moves toward the full rollout of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Executive Director of the Organization for Responsible Governance (ORG) Matt Aubry said public training and education on how to benefit from the act is necessary.
The Office of the Prime Minister yesterday released a request for expression of interest for the position of consultant for the freedom of information office.
The FOIA was passed by the Christie administration before the 2017 general election. Since then the law has not been fully enacted, despite promises by the Minnis administration.
The government announced in 2018 that it intended to borrow $30 million from the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) to strengthen its digital infrastructure and support the rollout of the FOIA.
Speaking to the recent notice, Aubry said, “Any movement on the Freedom of Information Act is important at this stage. There are many, many positives that will come from it being enacted. There’s a lot that’s been talked about and some indications that government is moving forward, but seeing the direct manifestation is encouraging.”
ORG has long advocated for the enactment of the FOIA.
In December 2020, Aubry lamented that the FOIA was “at a standstill” and there were real fears that the law, which promises governmental transparency, would not be passed before the next general election.
The Minnis administration campaigned in 2017 on greater transparency and the enactment of FOIA.
Aubry said yesterday that the enactment process of FOIA and ensuring there is a proper information technology team is critical.
“However, it’s the training – both internal by the government and external – that I think is going to be very important. I know reportedly there has been some work on the infrastructure in the government to train, because every agency in the government is going to have an identified information officer. And there’s going to be systems to exchange information, so that when it’s requested from one side it can be moved through and that information can be tracked as the requests are generated. But on the other side it’s going to important for the citizenry to be trained on how to take advantage of that,” he said.
“The FOIA is used often in different jurisdictions as a way to make bidding for government procurement more competitive, because you would find out information that you would then use to build out a better or more effective bid from your company. So we want to train the business sector on how to use this, we want to train community members on how to use it to better understand things in the neighborhood – if you want to get more information on a school or on scores so you can better understand your child. Again, organizations like mine or others that are interested in transparency can follow up environmental issues. So we want to make sure that as this is developed, we have a cadre of citizens that understand how to use it and use it to benefit not only our community, but also the country.”
Aubry said the expediency of information will be crucial, especially in light of a recent IDB report which criticized The Bahamas’ fiscal policies, governance, institutions, rules and processes.
“There are time limits by which once you put your request for information in, you are supposed to receive your reply and there are provisions. So once you would have made application in the law it’s 30 days. Once you say you’ve gone to this place to receive information, they are legally obliged to be able to respond to you in 30 days. If it’s not the right place for that information, they can move you over to another area in government,” he said.
“So, if I’m asking for information that I think is at the registrar general’s office and they say no that’s the Ministry of Finance, I would then begin that 30-day time limit at the Ministry of Finance. When the bill was being debated, Citizens for a Better Bahamas, the Organization for Responsible Governance and other entities provided feedback and we requested that timeline be shortened to only 14 days from when you make your request to when you get your information. But even if it’s a month, it’s better than making the request and having it go on for months and months and even a year at a time. So that is crucial.”
The post Aubry: Public training must coincide with FOIA enactment appeared first on The Nassau Guardian.
source https://thenassauguardian.com/aubry-public-training-must-coincide-with-foia-enactment/
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