FREEDOM OF INFORMATION IS A MYTH

Apr 23, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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It has long been believed that a Freedom of Information Act serves the best interests of a democracy by ensuring that persons have greater access to information. This is a myth. Freedom of Information does not improve public access to information; it is merely a façade used by western governments to bolster their credentials as a free society.
It is now more than thirty years since Jonestown and yet there are critical pieces of information that are still being treated as top secret.  How much has Freedom of Information facilitated the release of information to the American public?
The very Act, which obligates Governments to facilitate information release, also gives them an excuse to not release information. That excuse is usually national security considerations.
So, do you want to know about British intelligence in the run up to the war on Iraq? Do you want to know whether the Iraqi dossier was sexed up? Well information can be denied on the grounds that it will impinge on national security considerations.
Just after the PPP came to power, a number of documents were declassified by the Americans and the British. These documents confirmed what was known: that both governments encouraged the destabilisation of the PPP government because of fears of communism.
The documents released the details of funding for opposition parties, and even mentioned a proposal to kidnap the Jagans and fly them to Venezuela.  All of these things were, however, known long before the documents were declassified.
For a long time the United States had accused the Burnham regime of allowing the refueling of Cuban plans en route to Angola. The Burnham Government consistently denied these allegations. Well information is now coming to the fore, which suggests that permission was indeed granted for these refueling stops. But what use is the information now more than 25 years later.
When are we going to know what the Americans know about the assassination of Walter Rodney? It has been over twenty-five years since the assassination of this renowned historian and political activist. By the time information is released, those responsible and those having a direct hand in the assassination would have already died.
Gregory Smith, the agent who gave the explosive device to Rodney, has already died. So what use is the information, other than of historical value, after so many years?
Access to information under a Freedom of Information Act can also be frustrated by administrative delays. You can apply for information but there is no guarantee how long it will take for it to be considered and just what information will be forthcoming.
And there is little possibility of holding the government in contempt of the Act. Most acts are so worded as to immunize the executive from sanctions for not supplying the desired information.
The tabling of a Freedom of Information Act is therefore no red-letter day in our history. What would be achieved by this legislation? Do you ever believe that such an Act would allow the Guyanese people to demand to see the agreement signed between the government and the investor who was supposed to build a hotel in Kingston? Do you believe it would facilitate the government revealing to a media house the terms of the contract signed between the Government of Guyana and the investor at the former Sanata Textile facility? Do you believe that it will lead to the immediate tabling in the National Assembly of the agreement between BOSAI and the government of Guyana, yes the same agreement under a tax holiday was granted to that company? Do you believe that we will ever learn anything about the alleged old Cabinet “no –objection” to an award of a contract to a pharmaceutical company under which that company is not required to tender for the supply of goods and under which monies are paid up –front?
Do you believe that we will now see the alleged Tender Board waiver, which still allows this situation to continue?
Let us be serious, a Freedom of Information Act will only add to the official bureaucracy. Information will only be released as it is deemed necessary.
Those who are therefore trying to mimic what obtains in developed countries need to pay greater attention to what it is that allows greater access to information. It is not a Freedom of Information Act. Rather it is the professionalizing and insulation of the bureaucracy from executive manipulation; it is also the fact that the legislative arm of the State wields such considerable powers as to sanction the Executive for wrongdoing.
However progressive is our constitution, we do not have such independence in the official bureaucracy nor do we have a similar degree of checks and balances that would facilitate an accountable governmental institutional culture.
A Freedom of Information Act does not change institutional culture within a society; it is but a mere reflection of that culture. So to those seeking to imitate without knowing or understanding what facilitates access to public information, I say that the proposed Freedom of Information Act will turn out to be another useless piece of legislation.

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