Corruption Obstacle to Sharing Information With Public: Danish

The Second Vice President Sarwar Danish on Sunday said widespread corruption in the government institutions is among the obstacles to access to information.

Addressing the second National Conference on Strengthening Reporting in Localities and Promotion of Good Governance Culture in Kabul,  Danish said certain government officials’ involvement in corruption, hindering access to information, as he believes they have the fear of getting revealed.

“If access to information, particularly to official documents gets facilitated, corrupt faces will be revealed very soon,” he said.

The Information and Culture Minister for Publication, however, said people have the right to have access to information. ” The government do not own the information but preserves it and is a source of information.”

The Second Vice President meanwhile, asked the provincial spokesmen of the government institutions to maintain further cooperation with media outlets. He also urged the security officials to pay serious attention the security of the media.

“Ensuring security of media outlets is the government’s main duty,” he said. “Sharing information without security is impossible.” 

Access to information believed to be very effective in the process of good governance and eradication of corruption in the country, but the Oversight Commission on Access to Information (OCAI) in August said that because of bureaucracy, the right to access to information was not being formalized in the government.