Information commissioner not needed – PDM’s Smit

THE government does not need to create an office for an information commissioner to facilitate the implementation of the access to information law, Popular Democratic Movement member of parliament Nico Smit said in the National Assembly this week.

The responsibility of implementing a new access to information law must rather be given to already existing structures of public relations officers at various public and private entities, Smit said during a discussion of the access to information bill, which is under consideration in the National Assembly.

The draft bill makes provision for the president to appoint an independent and impartial person as an information commissioner to promote, monitor and protect the right to access information in Namibia.

The commissioner will be assisted by a deputy also appointed by the president.

These appointments will be made after the National Assembly approves the nominations from a list of two or three candidates done by a selection committee.

Smit said during the debate on the draft bill that the proposed office of an information officer, which he interpreted as a “quasi-tribunal”, was not needed because it would only increase the government’s salary expenses which, he said, “they cannot afford already”.

Smit added that public entities must make information available without the need for an information commissioner to push them.

He added that some provisions under the draft bill might also over-regulate the already bureaucratic process of accessing information, which might deter most people from participating in the process in the first place.

“The bill will allow the commissioner and his or her deputies to function like a court of law, with powers to grant or deny any application brought before them. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever why a type of tribunal must be created, outside the ambit of the Office of the Judiciary, to consider applications for access to information or to hear appeals when the first application was turned down. All this will do is to ensure that the already bloated civil service wage bill is inflated even further,” Smit said.

He however applauded the tabling of the bill in the National Assembly, saying that “in principle, all information must be readily available to any person who requires that information to achieve the bill’s objectives of promoting a free and open society”.

“The introduction of the new bill is whether citizens will enjoy unlimited access to whatever information they require or whether their efforts will be so frustrated in a web of bureaucratic hurdles that they will simply give up, and try to find the information somewhere else,” he stressed.

The access to information bill seeks to promote the free access to information held by public entities for public consumption, and to compel public and private entities to proactively and promptly make information available.

The bill also strives for the promotion, creation, keeping, organisation and management of information in ways that facilitate transparency, accountability, good governance and access to information.

It further seeks to create platforms and regulate processes for requesting for access to information and to identify and classify information exempted from disclosure.