Access to information

Mar 19, 2025 Editorial, News

Editorial…

Kaieteur News- Trying to obtain access to information in Guyana is like embarking on an exploration deep in the Amazon rainforests. Truth be told, it may be an even more difficult expedition to get information from the Guyana Government, using the statutory provision of the Office of the Commissioner of Information (Commissioner).

From the experiences of Guyanese, that office is harder to find than rare earth. To extract a response out of it, seemingly requires the intervention of God, or some other mystical force. It shouldn’t be this way.

Guyana’s Access to Information Act of 2011 is clear in its objective. Section 3(1) is unambiguous: “to extend the right to members of the public to access information in the possession of public authorities.” There can be no question that what is on paper (in the law) is encouraging and should have been a gateway to the public to access information that is not prohibited from general release. Like many things under the PPPC Government, there is a huge distance between what is on paper and what is reality.

A New York-based entity, the Oil and Gas Governance Network (OGGN), has tried its hand to extricate some information on oil company’s taxes out of the government, and that is where it has been stuck. A Guyanese citizen, based right here, has been stonewalled in her attempts to access information from the local Environmental Protection Agency. Prominent civil society activist, Chris Ram, wrote the Commissioner of Information in December 2021, and only after following up with a letter over a year later, was he favored with a reply. A reply of sorts, which represented nothing but wasted ink from the Commissioner who did the near impossible; he extended the dead end that accessing information has become in Guyana.

Accessing unrestricted government records should not be seen by the government, or the Commissioner, as a favor to those who are requesting the information. Guyanese have a right to get what they are seeking, insofar as the Access to Information Act permits. In fact, Section 18(a) of the Act states the Commissioner “shall take reasonable steps” to assist citizens in their quest to access government records.

Instead of a helping hand from the Commissioner, what Guyanese have received is the back of the hand. Further, Section 18(1) of the Act is very specific about the time that the Commissioner has to respond to a public applicant. The Commissioner has 30 days to acknowledge receipt of the request, and an initial 60 days from the date of receipt to inform the applicant that approval has been granted, or that their request has been denied. Section 18(2) requires the Commissioner to inform an applicant that additional time is needed for a decision on their request, as well as furnish the reasons for the delay. All of that is on paper, and with the record being that all those helpful provisions are being observed more in the breach.

The first question is whether the Office of the Commissioner of Information is part of some shell game or a bona fide secret society entity. Is the Commissioner of Information a real person or a phantom putting on a poor show of being an officer representing something that nobody knows? Why is it necessary for the Commissioner to stand as such an impregnable wall resisting the flow of unrestricted information to those seeking such? What kind of business is the government engaged in, that there has to be what amounts to hiding information from Guyanese? Moreover, who in the government is in such dire need of protection that mandates the Commissioner being so unhelpful, so unyielding?

President Ali and other members of his PPPC Government have embraced the practice of asserting loudly and consistently how much they are about transparency. We suggest that both the president and his team cast their eyes in the direction of the all but comatose Office of the Commissioner of Information and its head. By even some minimum standard of self-respect, the president and his people should be prompted to change their minds and confirm that transparency in government is a self-serving exaggeration- pure myth. Access to information is severely limited, almost nonexistent.

(Access to information)

Commissioner of Information, Editorial, experiences of Guyanese, PPPC Government, unambiguous

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Access to information

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