03 Apr 2018

Minister for Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration, Mr Eric Molale says government is committed to the drafting of the access to information or freedom of information bill. Mr Molale said a draft bill was already in place.

“Finalisation of the bill has been delayed by the need for such legislation to strike an appropriate balance between the public’s right to know and emerging issues such as privacy and identity protection,” he said.

He said any access to the information bill must be aligned with other proposed legislation such as the data protection legislation which has been published as well as the Cybercrime and Computer Related Crimes Bill of 2017.

He said it was not possible to know at this stage when the legislation would be ready for consideration by Parliament.

Selebi Phikwe West MP, Mr Dithapelo Keorapetse had asked the minister to explain what had been done since government had promised to start the process to enact the freedom of information law. ENDS