He said to create a better understanding of the law, stakeholders ought to sacrifice more time to study the Act for easy implementation.
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He said various interpretations have been given to the Act owing to poor understanding of the framework of the FOI law, adding that end users and information seekers need to strike a balance concerning the relatively new law in the country.
Alegeh made this observation on Tuesday in Abuja at a three-day workshop on Freedom of Information Act Implementers’ Strategy Meeting.
“The major bottleneck is in the law itself because the law is trying to hold a fair balance between what can be given and what should not be given; there are issues of national security, national interest, third party rights and so on.
“Its for those who are involved in the implementation of the law to try and determine what should be given out and how it should be given out.
“Supposing I ask what it would cost me to build a wall, somebody can term it a security issue, but it is not everything that is a security issue, so it’s the implementation that we should look at.
“Also, we need to have more education, more enlightenment for every person, for those who request, for those who are to give and if we all appreciate that we are working to make our country better, we are not in conflict with each other, then I think it will work better,” he said.
The NBA boss, who spoke on the theme: ‘Role of Legal Practitioners and the Nigerian Bar Association in Ensuring the Effective Implementation of the FOI Act’, said government and its agencies have been fairly transparent in dishing out information about their activities but stakeholders must apply better communication techniques if they must get more information out of government.
“Looking at the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act, which is one of our new laws, which is central to the efforts of the government to be more transparent, to make information about governance and all that we do available to every person.”
Daily Independent.
Alegeh made this observation on Tuesday in Abuja at a three-day workshop on Freedom of Information Act Implementers’ Strategy Meeting.
“The major bottleneck is in the law itself because the law is trying to hold a fair balance between what can be given and what should not be given; there are issues of national security, national interest, third party rights and so on.
“Its for those who are involved in the implementation of the law to try and determine what should be given out and how it should be given out.
“Supposing I ask what it would cost me to build a wall, somebody can term it a security issue, but it is not everything that is a security issue, so it’s the implementation that we should look at.
“Also, we need to have more education, more enlightenment for every person, for those who request, for those who are to give and if we all appreciate that we are working to make our country better, we are not in conflict with each other, then I think it will work better,” he said.
The NBA boss, who spoke on the theme: ‘Role of Legal Practitioners and the Nigerian Bar Association in Ensuring the Effective Implementation of the FOI Act’, said government and its agencies have been fairly transparent in dishing out information about their activities but stakeholders must apply better communication techniques if they must get more information out of government.
“Looking at the implementation of the Freedom of Information Act, which is one of our new laws, which is central to the efforts of the government to be more transparent, to make information about governance and all that we do available to every person.”
Daily Independent.
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