MRA, ITRealms
also reports, said that SON inductee into its Freedom of Information (FOI)
“Hall of Shame” was for its failure to comply with the provisions of the FOI
Act over the last six years and “carrying on as if the Law does not exist”.
Pronouncing the induction of SON into the
Hall of Shame, Mr. Ayode Longe, MRA’s Programme Director, told ITRealms that “The Standards
Organisation of Nigeria has carried on over the last six years as if the
Freedom of Information Act does not exist, blatantly ignoring virtually all its
legal duties and obligations under the Law.”
According
to him, “being the apex standardization body in Nigeria with the primary
responsibility and power to organize tests; investigate the quality of
facilities, materials and products; ensure reference standards for calibration
and verification of measures and measuring instruments; register and regulate
standard marks and specifications; among other wide-ranging powers and
functions, the SON ought to be at the forefront of transparency and openness.”
Mr.
Longe stressed that the activities of the organization, which is supposed to
set standards for other organisations, should not be shrouded in secrecy,
adding: “the SON ought to be transparent and accountable if it hopes to fulfill
its mandate as an organization that is charged with promoting consumer
confidence and the global competitiveness of Nigerian products and services.”
MRA
accused the SON of ignoring virtually all its obligations under the FOI Act
that can make it a transparent certifying organization and cited as an example
of its non-compliance with the Law, the organization’s failure to designate an
appropriate officer to whom requests for information should be sent in breach
of the mandatory requirement of Section 2(3)(f) of the FOI Act.
It
also observed that the SON had not submitted to the Attorney-General of the
Federation, as required by Section 29(1) of the Act, any annual report on its
implementation of the Act over the last six years and has also not on its
own published any such report for any year on its website or anywhere else, as
stipulated by the Law.
Mr.
Longe said: “The SON’s failure to submit annual reports to the Attorney-General
of the Federation, while constituting a serious breach of the provisions of the
FOI Act in and of itself, has other negative ramifications for the enforcement
of the Law and the monitoring of its implementation as the organization’s inexcusable
dereliction for six straight years has made it impossible to determine the
number of applications for information that it has received annually over the
last six years and the number of such applications that it processed and
granted or refused, the average number of days it takes to process each
application, the amount of fees it has collected from such applications, the
number of full-time staff of the institution that it devotes to processing
applications for information, among other important data.”
Additionally,
MRA noted that the SON has not complied with its proactive disclosure
obligations under Section 2(3) and (4) of the Act as it has not published
either on its website or anywhere else, the various categories of information
which the Law requires it to publish and disseminate widely to members of the
public through various means, including print, electronic and online sources.
Mr.
Longe said there was no indication that the SON has provided the required
training for its officials on the public’s right of access to information at
any time in the last six years despite the provisions of Section 13 of the Law.
Saying
that there was no justifiable excuse for the SON’s failure to comply with the
mandatory requirement of the FOI Act to train its personnel on the public’s
right of access to information and for the effective implementation of the Act
as stipulated in Section 13 of the Act, Mr. Longe remarked that the situation
was perhaps understandable given the SON’s arrogant disregard for all aspects
of the Act.
He
stressed that “as an organization saddled with enormous responsibilities of
promoting appropriate standards to instill consumer confidence in imported
goods and locally manufactured products, the SON ought to routinely facilitate
transparency and accountability in all aspects of its operations and should
naturally see FOI Act as a tool to build public confidence in it rather than
operating in secrecy and opting to disregard the provisions of the FOI Act.”
MRA
launched the “FOI Hall of Shame” on July 3, 2017 to draw attention to public
officials and institutions that are undermining the effectiveness of the
Freedom of Information Act, 2011 through their actions, inactions, utterances
and decisions.
Nonye Dom/GEE
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