The Public and Private Development Centre (PPDC) has partnered with the Ministry of Justice to seek ways of encouraging compliance with the principles of the Freedom of Information Act to increase accountability.
At a roundtable engagement in Abuja on the submission of compliance reports on the Freedom of Information (FoI) Act by public institutions, the chief executive officer of PPDC, Lucy Abagi, said the event was organised to promote transparency and accountability in governance by ensuring compliance with the Act.
Abagi said that the Act had remained a democratic instrument, empowering citizens with the right to public information and fostering a culture of openness.
According to her, FOI has played an official role in social accountability, reducing corruption and promoting public trust in government institutions.
She said that over the last 10 years, PPDC has pioneered the FOI ranking, adding that it has tried to assess the proactive disclosure of ministries, departments, and agencies with the FOI Act every year.
She also said that although progress had been made, challenges persisted in public institutions’ achieving full compliance with the Act.
Also speaking, the head of the Freedom of Information Unit at the Ministry of Justice, Mr Garuba Godwin, gave an overview of the FOI Act and said it was applicable to all MDAs.
Godwin said that the Act also applied to private institutions utilising public funds; hence, both government and private institutions must comply with its principles.
He said that the Act would officially make no public document secret, and every Nigerian citizen had the right to access information from public documents.
According to him, “Last year, about 91 public institutions complied with the release of government information.
“The honourable minister of justice has taken administrative action to ensure that this year if not half of the total number of the public institutions we have in this country, we should have most of them complying.”
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