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Ghana Police Service has been slapped with GH¢100,000 for refusing to comply with the Right to Information (RTI) Commission’s directive to grant an applicant access to requested information.
This is related to a letter written by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI), Africa, where it requested for information regarding cases of unlawful killing and police brutality however, the police reportedly disregarded it.
The Right To Information Commission in a statement underscored the Police Service failure to act on the applicant’s request, and also ignoring the Commission’s letter.
“Based on the Respondent’s failure to make decisions on the Applicant’s application lodged with it, the Respondent has clearly failed to perform its obligation under Act 989. This is coupled with its failure to respond to the Commission’s letter received by it.
“Such a posture by the Respondent is not to be encouraged as it is an affront to the right of access to information enshrined under Article 21(1) (f) of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana and affirmed by Act 989 and same ought to be disapproved in strong terms.
“For this reason, an administrative penalty of GH¢ 100,000.00 is imposed on the Respondent and this shall be payable to the Commission not later than 14 days after receipt of this decision of the Commission by the Respondent,” the statement said.
According to the RTI “The penalty so imposed shall attract an additional default penalty rate of l0% on the principal penalty sum of GH¢100,000.00 in the event of default for any additional 14 days thereafter.”
