In Ghana, Parliament’s Defence and Interior Committee has extended the time
for inputs on the interception of postal packets and telecommunications bill by
two more weeks.
This comes after civil society
groups raised concerns about the limited time for consultation and the poor education
and publicity given to the new bill.
The Bill, if passed into law, will
allow personnel of the National Security to listen, record, monitor, intercept
or tamper with telecommunication messages and postal packets.
The Bill, among other things, is to
help in the fight against terrorism, money laundering and other trans-national
criminal activities.
Deputy Director of Governance think
tank, Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), Franklin Oduro, said such an
important bill which could infringe upon the privacy of Ghanaians should not be
rushed.
"We think that the five days
given is so short a time," Oduro stated, adding that, a wider consultation
is needed nationwide.
In a response, the Chairman of
Parliament’s Defence and Interior Committee, Fritz Baffour also said, they have
extended the time for more memoranda from the public.
"We have granted the extension
for two weeks. It is a very contentious bill. Any bill or law that people
believe will infringe on their liberties and freedoms is opened to a lot of
contention so we want more inputs from all the various stakeholders,"
Baffour indicated.
No comments:
Post a Comment