SA govt secrecy getting worse: report
A new report published on Tuesday (9 September) points to an increasing climate of secrecy within government.
The Right2Know Campaign released its 2014 ‘Secret State of the Nation’ report. It noted that only 16% of requests by civil society organisations under the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) resulted in full release of information in 2012/2013.
This was down from 22% in 2010/2011, and 35% in 2008/2009.
“There is too little proactive release of information,” Right2Know said.
Right2Know said that PAIA enables any person to request records from a public body and get a response within 30 days.
Citing research conducted by the PAIA Civil Society Network, Right2Know said that in over 250 requests submitted between August 2012 and July 2013, 54% were met with silence, while 62% of requests that were under ‘internal appeal’, did not get a
response in the 30 days required by law.
In 2013, theProtection of Personal Information Act (Popi) amended PAIA to make provision for an Information Regulator, which will act as an ombud with legal powers to force compliance with information requests.
“Though the office of the Information Regulator has not yet been established, it is hoped that this will strengthen transparency,” Right2Know said.
Additional finding revealed signs of abuse of secrecy and continued securitisation of some parts of the state including:
- Increasing limitations on protest, with a sharp increase in attacks on protesters: there is a general upward trend in the number of protesters killed by police, and complaints of assault and attempted murder by police;
- Continued increase of the use of state-security policies such as the National Key Points and Strategic Installations with no public oversight;
- Lack of public oversight of surveillance capacity which remains vulnerable to abuse;
- Signs that secrecy and security-state capacity are being used to shield political actors from embarrassment and scrutiny, in particular the office of the Presidency and President Zuma himself.
Right2Know said it is worth noting that the report has been hampered by lack of access to information; many of the metrics of secrecy, which would help inform a public debate on these issues, remain secret.
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