Information Commissions of the region should not hesitate to punish public officials guilty of not providing information. Similarly any loss and victimization should be compensated to the citizens

South Asian nations need to forge an alliance to ensure the use of Right to Information (RTI) as a powerful tool to sustain and consolidate democracy by respecting the citizen’s Right to Know and Right to Information and agreeing on a common agenda to cooperate, reciprocate and increase mutual understanding in various fields of RTI. First of all, we must ensure  our campaign  incorporates RTI as a fundamental right in our respective constitutions, because the constitution is the main source of the law, and it is a common document that is the finding of all political parties. If we are able to include RTI in the constitution, the government will be compelled to maintain openness and accountability.  It is necessary to change the mindset of government employees towards openness and accountability. In Nepal, National Information Commission is trying its best to remove the word confidentiality from a civil servant’s oath. We should be able to encourage the government to conduct regular press programs and establish grievance handling mechanisms in its organization.

This will help to promote openness in the government system. Similarly, we also need to encourage the government to introduce openness in official set ups like cubical partition, maintain work flow chart and use standard operation procedure to serve the people for enhancing accountability. There is a secret behind why those in the government deny information to the people. The reason is they do not have proper documentation system. Thus, we have to promote measures that ensure that citizens have easy access to public information. For this purpose, digitization of records is essential. This could be done through timely disclosure in websites and easy linkages with other websites. Public information should be available in public libraries and other places easily accessible to the public. Likewise, we have to encourage enacting a Whistle Blower Protection and Privacy Act in countries of our region.

To promote government openness and accountability we have to focus on key positions to ensure recruitment by leadership assessment centers’ recommendation on the grounds of meritocracy. We just need a few good people to change the system. Thus, if we can focus on and provide support to chief of the office, public information officer (PIOs) and spokesperson it will become more citizen centric and we can achieve the desired goal. In this context, PIOs and office heads should be trained to disclose information regularly and proactively. For this purpose, the policy of positive competition, motivation and fringe benefit, felicitation and rewards to PIOs should be initiated.We should promote RTI audit system for peer competition and effective implementation of RTI legislation. National Information Commission, Nepal has already initiated RTI audit at the ministry level. Likewise, we have to promote RTI budget systems in all projects and programs. The RTI should be included in school curriculum so that the future generations are in a position to promote open working culture.

We must understand that RTI is a main gate to promote openness, transparency and accountability. Government efforts alone are not sufficient to reinforce RTI as a powerful tool to strengthen democratic exercises.

We should understand that opaque society, culture of secrecy and denial of public information will lead us nowhere. Public bodies and respective officials should understand that only an open society and free flow of information can provide them satisfaction even after their retirement. Fellowship in higher education like PHD, Master’s level and internship and training in each other’s training institutes and exchange of experts and academicians in one other’s centers of excellence can provide a good opportunity to better understand and share the knowledge, research and best practices in this regard. Information Commissions of the region should not hesitate to punish public officials guilty of  not providing information. Similarly any loss and victimization should be compensated to the citizens.

Nepal’s National Information Commission is working towards Open Government Data (OGD) initiative with the United Nations. A sensitization workshop on OGD has already been organized and we are organizing other such events in the near future. Similarly, Nepal has initiated the process of acquiring membership of Open Government Partnership (OGP). In this context, all South Asian Region Information Commissions need to cooperate and collaborate in this movement. The common problem with all of us is that most of the public official fears the misuse of information against themselves if they proactively disclose information.

Similarly, we have been victimized by the yellow journalism also in this region. Now the time has come to remove these fears and hesitations among the public officials through constructive dialogues, periodical interactions, orientations, training and learning and sharing best practices within the region to build confidence and fearlessness to comply with the Right to Information Act. Finally, National Information Commission of Nepal is planning to host a South Asian level Chief Information Commissioners and Information Commissioners Conference in Kathmandu in the near future. We hope that this conference will foster more cooperation and understanding within the region and send a message to other regions as well to work closer for a common agenda.

The writer is Chief Information Commissioner