The ICIR, on October 08, 2021, via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), requested the details of contractors managing street projects in Anambra Point out and precisely questioned for the file(s) of agreement agreements and specification information of the job.
Facts demanded by The ICIR incorporated: full information of the contracts, the overall total launched for each job, the duration and completion dates of the undertaking.
Study ALSO:
2023 Elections: Fashola distances self from presidential campaign posters
5 potential corp members shed to highway accident together Abaji-Kwali Expressway
Nigeria wants modern day policies to promote monetary inflows -DG, LCCI
– Advertisement –
Soon after the expiration of seven days, the ministry is still to answer to the ask for and has also unsuccessful to give factors for the refusal, as stipulated by the FOI Act.
The ministry violated Segment 1(1), 2(4), 4 and 5 of the Flexibility of Information and facts Act.
Area 1(1) states that “Notwithstanding something contained in any other Act, regulation or regulation, the suitable of any individual to access or ask for facts, regardless of whether or not contained in any penned kind, which is in the custody or possession of any community formal, agency or institution howsoever described, is established.”
Part 2(4) states that “public establishment shall make sure that facts referred to in this area is widely disseminated and built commonly obtainable to members of the community by way of several usually means, together with print, digital and online sources, and at the offices of this sort of community establishments.”
Sections 4 and 5 of the FOIA mandates all community institutions to grant or give good reasons for denying a ask for within just seven times.
Area 4 states: “Where by info is used for less than this Act the public establishment to which the application is made shall, matter to sections 6, 7, and 8 of this Act, inside 7 days just after the application is received- (a) make the facts offered to the applicant (b) The place the general public institution considers that the application must be denied, the institution shall give prepared detect to the applicant that obtain to all or element of the data will not be granted, stating explanations for the denial, and the part of this Act underneath which the denial is made”
And Portion 5 states: “(1) Where a general public establishment receives an application for access to details, and the establishment is of the look at that a further community establishment has bigger interest in the information, the establishment to which the application is made may possibly in 3 times but not afterwards than 7 times immediately after the application is been given, transfer the application, and if essential, the information, to the other public establishment, in which situation, the establishment transferring the application shall give created detect of the transfer to the applicant, which discover shall have a assertion informing the applicant that this kind of determination to transfer the software can be reviewed by the Courtroom.
– Advertisement –
“(2) The place an application is transferred beneath subsection (l), the software shall be deemed to have been made to the general public establishment to which it was transferred on the day the community establishment been given it.
“(3) For the purpose of subsection (l), a general public institution has ‘a higher interest’ in info if – (a) the info was originally made in or for the institution or (b) in the situation of info not originally made in or for the community establishment, the institution was the 1st public establishment to receive the info.”
In the recently introduced 2021 FOIA compliance ranking, the ministry rated 129th, coming very last amid other organizations in that course. The compliance ranking sheet for prior decades confirms that the Ministry of Performs and Housing is a serial defaulter of the FOI legislation.
In 2019, 2018, 2017, and 2016, the ministry also came final in the rankings.
The FOI Act signed into law in 2011 gives that community establishments are to make community information and information and facts additional freely accessible and to deliver for public entry to general public information and information and facts.
