On Friday, several members of Civil Society, including the press, picketed the Office of the Commissioner of Information over the lack of access to information in Guyana.

Retired Court of Appeal Judge and former Attorney General, Charles Ramson is the current Commissioner of Information.

He was returned to the position in 2022 after after being removed from the post in 2017 by the then APNU+AFC Government.

Ramson has been running the Commissioner of Information office from his East Street, Georgetown premises.

Standing outside of the Information Commissioner’s office on Friday, Attorney-at-Law and Chartered Accountant Christopher Ram said the Office of the Commissioner of Information has a statutory duty and obligation to ensure that citizens are provided with information of the State that is not specifically barred under the Access to Information Act. However, he said citizens are being blocked by Ramson from accessing information.

“This Commissioner is more concerned with title, call me this and call me that Justice Ramson, and quite frankly, you would have to say that he is Commissioner of No Information. Our intention is to draw attention to the in-operation of the Act, to get the President and the Government to have the Act with all of its flaws, as they say it has, get it operationalized,” Ram said.

He said the Act must be brought into effect and operationalized, even as steps are taken to address the laws.

“To leave citizens in an election year, in a year when you hear billions of dollars are issued by way of tax certificates and we can’t see a single certificate, and they have fudged, they dodged, diverted every single thing between the Office of the Commissioner of Information and the Government,” Attorney said.

Ram questioned whether a report for the Commissioner of Information has ever been submitted to the National Assembly.

He said the issue should also be challenged in the Court.

Adding his voice to the issue, former Auditor General, Anand Goolsarran told News Source that he too experienced difficulties accessing information through the Office of the Commissioner of Information, while serving as Head of the Transparency Institute of Guyana.  

“I have experienced difficulties when I was President of Transparency to access information, and to get the information. Other people have, civil society have, tried getting information, but we are not getting information. Lately, we were asking about the tax certificates,” Goolsarran said.

He also questioned the Commissioner of Information’s Office being located at one of his own homes.

Also on the picket line was the Editor-in-Chief of the Stabroek News, Anand Persaud.

Mr. Persaud said it was time for President Ali to address the issue of lack of access to information in the country.

“It is totally disgraceful that this office isn’t functioning, hasn’t functioned since 2011, and it is time, the onus on President Ali to do something about it. He cannot continue to allow this masquerade to go on as though we do have the semblance of an Access to Information Act. We don’t,” Persaud said.

He said the Commissioner continues to receive a hefty salary, while doing nothing.

Leader of the Alliance For Change, Nigel Hughes, along with a number of AFC Members, were also present at the picketing exercise.

He said Guyanese should not be barred from accessing pertinent information on decisions taken by the Government.

“Information is the life blood of any sort modern country. The fourth estate, your profession, is a key guarantor of that. In this contemporary society, access to information about what the government is doing with your money is an absolute right. We need first of all to enshrine it in the constitution, it should be a protected right of every citizen to access information about what the government is doing with your resources, and means literally, as you demand that information, you should get it in a specified time,” Hughes said.

He said the Act needs teeth, and a single man has been put in charge with no real intention of providing the citizenry with information.

There has been no response by the Commissioner of Information to the picketing exercise outside his home office.

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