Group urges Gombe on domestication of FoI Act
The United States Agency for International Development, State Accountability, Transparency and Effectiveness, State2State Activity, State Team Lead, Mohammed Abubakar, has urged Gombe State Government on domestication of Freedom of Information Act, adding that it would yield greater development.
He made this disclosure on Friday at the end of a four-day Public Financial Management midline assessment workshop held in Gombe State.
Recall that S2S supports states to plan and budget, raise revenues, increase civil society participation, and oversee service delivery in the Health; Education; and Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene sectors by building relevant capacities
According to him, although Gombe got four awards in World Bank’s states Fiscal Transparency, Accountability, and Sustainability the FOIA would enhance best practices.
Abubakar said, “When we don’t have Freedom of Information, citizens may not have access to government programmes and they wouldn’t have good understanding and ways to tell government to ameliorate existing problems especially in the social sector which we are focused on. Unless we have efficient service delivery that we improve funding in the areas, we will continue to have challenges. Gombe has been doing well but there are existing gaps the Fiscal Responsibility Commission Board is there but the members have not been inaugurated, we are appealing to the governor to inaugurate them. The open governance state steering committee is in place but are yet to be inaugurated appealing to the governor to inaugurate them.”
“Absence of FOIA there are certain thing people will be doing that people will not know because they can’t ask certain questions. Government is shortchanging, underreporting itself by not demonstrating what it doing. However, with freedom of information bill this is what we are doing for your benefits and if there are areas that they want to get additional support it is easy,” he added.
On his part, Public Financial Management Specialist S2S, Gombe Oluwatosin Oke, said “We discovered in 2021 that the state has no Freedom of Information law, there is no legal framework that the public can hold to approach their government and demand for some information because that law is not there the state government officials can decide not to release public records.”
“Although the state has implemented States Fiscal Transparency, Accountability, and Sustainability which made them open up but without the law an official can decide to withhold information and there is nothing anyone can do but with the law you can access public documents in the state as long as they are not confidential, security information or information that will allow anyone perpetrate crime they have access to the law. The state can also amend its Fiscal Responsibility Act to be more robust, freedom to information,” Oke added.
