Mozambique: Survey On Secrecy And Openness in Public Institutions

Mozambique has some of the most secretive public institutions in southern Africa, accuses the regional press freedom body MISA (Media Institute of Southern Africa), in a report entitled "Government Secrecy in an Information Age". The report, released in Maputo on Tuesday, is an annual survey on how open, or how secretive, state institutions in southern Africa are, and it covers eight of the 14 members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

 

Mozambique has some of the most secretive public institutions in southern Africa, accuses the regional press freedom body MISA (Media Institute of Southern Africa), in a report entitled "Government Secrecy in an Information Age".

 

The report, released in Maputo on Tuesday, is an annual survey on how open, or how secretive, state institutions in southern Africa are, and it covers eight of the 14 members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

 

The report looks at how useful the websites of public institutions are, and whether the institutions reply to written requests for information.

 

The Mozambique section surveyed eight public institutions - the Mozambique Tax Authority (AT), the Attorney-General's Office, the Central Office for the Fight against Corruption (GCCC), the State Shares Management Agency (IGEPE), the Bank of Mozambique, the Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of Fisheries, and the country's parliament, the Assembly of the Republic.

 

Four of these eight institutions did not possess a website at the time the research was undertaken, although a representative of IGEPE assured the launch ceremony that an IGEPE website has been operating since June.

 

Five of the eight declined to give the information that MISA requested. Or, to be more precise, they did not even reply to the letters that MISA sent. MISA operated on the principle that, if no reply was received within 30 days, that counted as a refusal.

 

None of the institutions wrote back asking for more time, or explaining why they could not give the information requested. They simply did not reply.

 

An AT representative apologised and said there must have been a breakdown in communications within the institution, since it had no difficulty at all in answering MISA's question about businessmen whose tax behaviour is exemplary - indeed the institution awards prizes for the best taxpayers, and the information is quite public.

 

Easily the most secretive institution was the one which should have been the most open - the Assembly of the Republic. The Mozambican parliament does not have a website, and did not answer the written questions from MISA (on the money spent on cars and medical care for parliamentary deputies).

 

MISA thus gave the Assembly "the Golden Padlock Award for the Most Secretive Public Institution" - a statuette in the shape of the padlock. But, although the Assembly had been invited, there was nobody present to receive this booby prize.

 

Runner-up was the Ministry of Energy, which has an out-of-date website, bearing the same message from the Minister as in 2007, and which failed to answer a question asking for a copy of the Environmental Impact Assessment for the new dam to be built at Mpanda Nkua on the Zambezi.

 

MISA also found it "unacceptable and deeply worrying" that the GCCC has no website, which should be "a powerful tool for informing and interacting with citizens on how best to fight corruption".

 

"If the GCCC had a website, those public officials wishing to remain anonymous could blow the whistle on corrupt officials and practices in public institutions, thus helping the office to investigate and potentially prosecute offenders more effectively", said the report.

 

But the GCCC did respond promptly to written requests for information on the number of public servants accused of corruption in 2009 and the first quarter of 2010.

 

It was the other way round with the GCCC's parent body, the Attorney-General's Office, which has a reasonably up-to-date website, though lacking information on its budget and procurement procedures. But the office did not answer MISA's request for the number of prosecutors sacked over the past three years for involvement in corruption.

 

The Bank of Mozambique and the Tax Authority have websites that MISA found very useful, but failed to reply to the written questions. The Ministry of Fisheries lacked a website, but did answer questions about the export of shellfish to Spain.

 

"The culture of secrecy prevails in public institutions and must be countered with an access to information regime", MISA concluded. It noted that there is strong provision for access to information in the Mozambican constitution, "but without statutory legislation, it is ineffective".

 

Mozambique is far from the worst offender in the SADC region. The report accused Lesotho of having the most secretive government in southern Africa, followed by Swaziland. 13 institutions were surveyed in these two countries, and none of them responded to written requests for information.

 

- September 28, 2010 by AIM

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Source: allafrica.com/stories/201009290297.html (accessed on 29.09.10)