Rally to demand INFO ACCESS NOW!
On Tuesday 24 May 2011, while our parliamentarians meet to finalise the Secrecy Bill, community organisations that are part of the Right2Know campaign will gather in Cape Town to demand access to information from local and national government departments.
The Mandela Park Backyarders, the Newfields Village Anti-Eviction Campaign, as well as committees from Zille-Raine Heights and Blikkiesdorp, want access to information about housing delivery and resettlement plans in their communities. Together we will deliver PAIA applications to the City of Cape Town, the Provincial Human Settlements Department and the National Human Settlements Department. These applications demand access to budget reports, resettlement plans for families facing eviction, housing allocation plans, and documents showing land ownership in their communities.
Join us outside the Civic Centre at 8.30AM, Tuesday 24 May to affirm our right to access information and say no to secrecy!
After the picket is over we will attend the Parliamentary meeting on the Protection of Information Bill (the Secrecy Bill), where MPs are trying to finalise a Bill that will further undermine our struggles for transparency and delivery.
What is PAIA?
The Promotion of Access to Information Act of 2000 (PAIA) is a law stating that everyone has a right to information held by the State and any information that is held by another person if it is required for the exercise or protection of any rights. PAIA empowers communities to access information that concerns their development. But the law alone is not enough to ensure that communities get access to information – studies show that about two-thirds of PAIA applications to government get no response at all.
About the INFO ACCESS NOW campaign:
The Right2Know campaign recognises that the Secrecy Bill is a symptom and a symbol of much broader problems with transparency in South Africa. Access to information is central to service delivery: a responsive and accountable democracy able to meet the basic needs of our people is built on transparency and the free flow of information.
In April the Right2Know campaign hosted a series of public meetings in communities to find out what challenges they were experiencing with access to information. What we heard is that many communities are struggling with secrecy on a daily basis – they want access to basic information that concerns their livelihood. A number of community organisations have partnered with the Right2Know to campaign for officials to release this information.
