A United States-based Ghanaian Professor, Kwaku Asare has told the Scholarship Secretariat to immediately publish the list of beneficiaries on its website.
This was after he said the failure of the Scholarship Secretariat to release the soft copy of the list of beneficiaries to the Fourth Estate violates the law.
His comment comes after the Executive Director of the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), the organization that hosts the Fourth Estate, Sulemana Braimah, had stated that they required soft copies of the documents from the secretariat but were given hard copies instead.
“Request was for list of scholarship beneficiaries in soft copy. They refused. RTI Com’ssion ordered them to release the data to the team. They said they can’t give soft copy. They give us this bulky stuff thinking it will frustrate us. But the team was ready to compile & analyse,” he wrote on his X platform.
Commenting on this matter, Prof Asare wrote on His Facebook page that “So it’s the Scholarship Secretariat that must bear the cost of printing & binding.
“I contend that the failure to release the soft copy of the information therefore violates the law. I further contend that the cost of printing and binding is unnecessary, should be disallowed, and surcharged to the persons making that awful decision to print and bind the information.”
Below is his full post…
Parliament anticipated that agencies could resist information requesters’ format choices. For instance, a recalcitrant agency could provide hard copies, rather than soft copies, to frustrate the requesters’ ability to disseminate or even to effectively process the information.
Accordingly, Parliament required that “where a request for access to information has been made in a particular form, access to information SHALL be given in that form.” This means if a requester ask for a soft copy the agency must comply.
The request may be refused only “if it is likely to be detrimental to the preservation of the information; or having regard to the physical nature of the information, it is not appropriate to grant access in that form.”
It’s hard to see how the release of the soft copy of the scholarship information released to the Fourth Estate would be detrimental to its preservation or how the information’s physical nature makes it inappropriate to be released in electronic form.
The information already exists in electronic form and there is no rational reason to incur additional printing & binding cost.
Auditing Scholarship Secretariat is not enough to tackle the rot – Partey Anti
This is particularly so since others are likely to request the same information and reprinting thousands of copies defy logic.
It’s also important to understand that it is the public that is paying for this needless printing and binding.
This is because the law provides that (1) where access cannot be given in the form specified by the applicant but can be given in some other form, access shall be given in that other form; and (2) the applicant shall be provided with a reason why access cannot be given in the specified form.
Crucially, the applicant SHALL not be required to pay a fee which is greater than the fee that the applicant would have paid had access been given in the form requested.
Suppose an applicant ask for soft copies but the agency decides to print & bind the information. The law is saying that the applicant’s fee is capped at the cost of giving him an electronic file, which is often negligible.
So it’s the Scholarship Secretariat that must be bear the cost of printing & binding.
I contend that the failure to release the soft copy of the information therefore violates the law.
I further contend that the cost of printing and binding is unnecessary, should be disallowed, and surcharged to the persons making that awful decision to print and bind the information.
Further, the SS should publish the information on its website with immediate effect.
#SALL is the cardinal sin of the 8th Parliament.
Da Yie!