RTI Bill debate begins

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said today that the it will take least one year to fully implement the provisions of the Right to Information (RTI) act as close to 12,000   persons would have to be recruited and trained in to disseminate information.

“It is not an easy task to recruit and train so many persons but we will take try to get at least half of them recruited within six months,” the Prime Minister said at the start of the debate on the RTI Bill.

 He said that the RTI law will consolidate democracy in the country and would hold the government accountable to the public.

The Prime Minister said that in 2003 the UNP first attempted to introduce a RTI Bill but after it lost power in 2004, the Bill went into cold storage. The UNP Bill at the time was titled the Freedom of Information Bill.”

“If the RTI law had been in place, then some of the excesses of the previous government which are only coming to light now would have been exposed,” he said.