Public officers face jail term over access to information

The newly enacted Access to Information Bill is currently awaiting President Uhuru Kenyatta’s signature. PHOTO | FILE 

By EDWIN MUTAI, emutai@ke.nationmedia.com

In Summary

• The Access to Information Bill seeks to give life to Article 35 of the Constitution that grants citizens the right to access information held by the State.
• Its signing into law is expected to move the fight against theft and wastage of public resources to the next level by removing the veil of secrecy that corrupt public officers use to hide malfeasance in their offices.

Public officers who refuse to provide access to information requested by journalists or ordinary citizens will be liable to a two-year jail term or a Sh500,000 fine if President Uhuru Kenyatta assents to the newly enacted freedom of information law.

The Access to Information Bill, which was passed two weeks ago, seeks to give life to Article 35 of the Constitution that grants citizens the right to access information held by the State for purposes of exercising or protecting any right or fundamental freedom.

Its signing into law is expected to move the fight against theft and wastage of public resources to the next level by removing the veil of secrecy that corrupt public officers use to hide malfeasance in their offices.

The Bill, which is currently awaiting Mr Kenyatta’s signature, bars public officers or entities from altering, defacing, blocking, erasing, destroying or concealing any information for which access has been requested.

“Where an application to access information has been made to a public entity… and the applicant would have been entitled subject to payment of any fee, any person to whom this section applies commits an offence if he alters, defaces, blocks, erases, destroys or conceals any record held by a public entity, with the intention of preventing disclosure of all or part of the information,” Section 18 of the Bill says.

Chief executive officers of public entities are designated as the information access officers in the new law -- meaning they will take personal responsibility for non-compliance or misrepresentation of facts provided to the media or ordinary citizens.

A request for information will be made in English or Kiswahili indicating the nature and details of what is required to the public officer or any other official whose role is to provide the information.

Illiterate or disabled applicants who cannot make written requests for information shall make the request orally, placing the burden of writing it down on the public officer concerned.

READ: Why access to information law is vital

The newly enacted law says such requests will be fed into a prescribed form and a copy provided to the applicant.

Public officers must make a decision on an application within 21 days of receipt of the application, leaving little room for procrastination.

Where the information sought concerns the life or liberty of a person, however, the law demands that the information be provided within 48 hours of receipt of the application or not later than 15 working days where the application is complex or relates to large volumes of information.

Failure to respond to a request for information within the prescribed period amounts to an offence that is punishable, on conviction, to a fine not exceeding Sh500,000 or imprisonment for three months or both.

The law spells out how an information access officer will communicate to the applicant where a decision is taken to provide the information applied for.

The information access officer will within 15 days of receipt send to the applicant a written response advising that the application has been granted, that the information will be contained in an edited copy where applicable, the details of any fees to be paid together with calculations made to arrive at the amount of the fee, the method of payment of the fees and the proposed process of accessing the information once payment is made.