A Kwara-based civil society organization monitoring how public funds are spent Elites Network for Sustainable Development (ENetSuD), has written the Kwara State House of Assembly over the Assembly’s inaction on the amendment of the state’s State Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill 2019 requested by the state Governor, Alhaji Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, before he could assent to the bill.

In a letter jointly signed by its Coordinator, Dr. Alagbonsi Abdullateef, and General Secretary, Mahmud Usman Baba, and submitted to the Speaker of the Assembly, Rt. Hon. Salihu Yakubu Danladi, on September 11, 2019, ENetSuD reminded the Assembly about the legislative journey of the Bill. Part of the letter read: In a letter read by the Rt. Hon. Speaker at the plenary on 23rd July, 2019, the Governor gave his highly positive and fascinating feedback to KWHA and requested for minor amendment of sections 4, 5(1), 6 and 10 before his assent to the Bill. The Rt. Hon. Speaker took a right step by immediately referring the Bill to House Committee on Information, Youth, Sport, Culture & Tourism and House Committee on Ethics, Privileges & Judiciary for the amendment requested by the Governor.”

ENetSuD registered its concern over the Assembly’s delay in amending the Bill and sought convincing clarification, noting: “As a Kwara-based civil society organisation that strongly believes in transparency and accountability as the bedrock of good governance, we wish to register our concern over the Assembly’s delay in the amendment of the Bill, which has been preventing the Governor’s assent. Why the minor amendment requested by the Governor has not been done after 50 days is not understood by the general public and needs convincing clarification.”

ENetSuD alleged that the 9th Assembly has always been giving prompt attention to all other executive requests except the FOI Bill, which shows the Assembly’s little or no priority for the Bill.

“The FOI Bill that will make public records and information more freely available, provide for public access to public records and information, protect public records and information to the extent consistent with the public interest and the protection of personal privacy, protect serving public officers from adverse consequences of disclosing certain kinds of official information without authorization and establish procedures for the achievement of those purposes and for related matters, is of equal importance as others given priority by the Assembly.

“We are of the strong conviction that the delay in amendment of FOI Bill requested by the Governor is due to little or no priority given to the Bill by the Assembly under your leadership,” ENetSuD noted.

The group pointed out the impacts of its #FollowKwaraMoney activities in tracking Federal Government projects in the State using the FOI Act and expressed the difficulty it has been facing in tracking Kwara State and Local Governments budgets.

“Our #FollowKwaraMoney activities have been extensively monitoring and tracking the Federal Government capital and constituency projects in Kwara State since 2017, which have been ensuring that public funds work for the people. The tracking of FG-funded projects has been possible for us because of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act 2011, which we have effectively been using to promote Transparency and Accountability on spending of Kwara-related funds from FG. However, tracking of projects funded by Kwara State and Local Governments have been difficult due to the fact that the FOI Act has not been domesticated in the State.

“ENetSuD urges the Assembly to amend sections 4, 5(1), 6 and 10 of the FOI Bill before 24th September 2019, failure of which it shall take any available lawful step. Sir, we urge you to amend sections 4, 5(1), 6 and 10 of the FOI Bill as requested by the Governor and retransmit the Bill to him for his assent. As citizens, we shall not hesitate to take any available lawful step if nothing is done by the Assembly under your leadership after 2 months (by 24th September, 2019),” ENetSuD added.

A copy of the letter was submitted to the Governor of the State, Director of Department of State Services (DSS), and the Kwara State Commissioner of Police.