The Republic has submitted nine letters of review for refusal to provide requested information to public institutions over the last few days. The institutions are the Central Bank of the Gambia; the Ministry of Trade, Industry, Regional Integration and Employment; the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs; the Gambia Revenue Authority; the National Water and Electricity Company; the National Environment Agency; the Ministry of Petroleum; the Geology Department and the Gambia Public Procurement Authority (GPPA).
The GPPA has been very responsive, though it failed to deliver the information within the timeframe specified by law, it prepared a reply which The Republic expects to receive on January 17. The national utility company, Nawec, only replied through emails to say it is processing the requests but failed to provide the information until the timeframe passed.
The Petroleum Ministry replied but only after the timeframe elapsed to say it will review the request. The rest have failed to reply or even acknowledge receipt of our request. During the course of the week, we sent a request of reviews to the heads of these public institutions, which their heads have 15 days to address, failure of which we will file complaints before the Information Commission.
The Gambian lawmakers have passed the Access to Information Act in 2021. The Commissioners of the Access to Information Commission were recently sworn in by the Vice President effectively setting up the Commission.
The ATI Act empowers members of the public( including journalists, researchers and citizens) to request information from public institutions, and some private institutions that directly or indirectly operate or benefit from public funds or that perform public functions and services using public funds. The institutions are allowed a 21– day timeframe to reply within which a lack of response is deemed a refusal, according to Section 17 of the Act.
The Republic’s request for a review of the refusals is pursuant to Section 39 of the ATI Act. This gives the public institutions another 15 days to reply, according to Section 40 of the Act. The Republic will file a complaint before the Access to Information Commission if the institutions fail to respond to our requests or the publication is dissatisfied with their response.
One thing that has been apparent through our processes is that most public institutions have not appointed an Information Officer as mandated under Section 9 of the Act and in a significant number of cases, misconstrued the functions of the Information Officer to the functions of press or information officers at agencies and ministries.
In one instance, a ministry refused to take in our letter because it was addressed to the Information Officer. There also appears to be a general lack of understanding of the ATI law. For example, one institution invited us for a meeting to inquire why we made the request whereas the law does not oblige the requester to provide a justification. The Republic has made a total of twelve requests for information, three of which have not reached 21 days yet.
