KATHMANDU: Citizens have been organizing and initiating collective campaign for seeking information of public significance by utilizing the right given by the Right to Information (RTI) Act.
A National Federation for RTI has been formally formed and it has started the campaign for the proper practice and use of the RTI.
The Federation organized an interaction on promoting RTI and its practical use, in association with the National Information Commission (NIC), here today.
NIC chief commissioner Mahendra Man Gurung said that action has been taken against 31 office chiefs denying giving the information of public importance. He said the Commission has also written to the offices concerned not to promote and reappoint the office chiefs facing such action.
“The Office of the Auditor General, which had stopped uploading the report on the arrears of the local levels in its website, has now started doing so at the Commission’s order. The public bodies should voluntarily publish the information regarding the topics as stipulated by law within three months,” Chief Commissioner Gurung said.
Gurung opined that problem has been encountered in implementing the RTI as the employees of the public bodies are made to take oath of confidentiality in course of their appointment.
NIC Chief Commissioner informed that they were going to publish a book for facilitating the information seekers to seek information of public importance. He added that preparations are on for publishing a similar book for the information officers at the public bodies.
RTI campaigner and former president of the Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ) Taranath Dahal described RTI as a useful tool for safeguarding democracy and promoting transparency and good governance. He urged the conscious citizens to use this tool continuously, stressing on the need of building pressure from the citizen’s level for the implementation of RTI.
Federation president Umid Bagchand said that the Federation, a civil campaign, has conducted the district convention in 35 districts so far and will do so in all the 77 districts by this mid-August. He added that they were preparing for holding the national convention. The Federation has also prepared for conducting training, both online and physically, for those interested in joining the practice of RTI. It is also working on a programme for making all the 753 local levels to allocate budget and implement programme for raising public awareness on RTI.
At the programme, Consumers’ Federation and the Federation’s Valley Region coordinator Tara Bahadur Bhandari among the speakers underscored the need of citizens’ awareness for promoting exercise of RTI.
