February 6, 2007

 Officials from the Ministry of Finance Declared that the Ministry works on Providing Free Access to Information for the Public

 Officials from the Ministry of Finance noted that the omission of certain files and reports on the general budget from the Ministry’s website is due to technical reasons that have to do with the website’s reconstruction. They also stated that the Ministry works hard to ensure free access to information for the public in a way that complies with the regulations and laws set for this matter.

 This subject was brought about in a workshop organized by AMAN Coalition for the purpose of discussing a draft report on the Ministry of Finance’s adherence to the Freedom of Information Act. The workshop was attended by representatives of the Ministry of Finance and PLC members.

 This report is part of a series of reports produced by AMAN in cooperation with one of the Coalition members; MUWATIN. The series of reports aim at diagnosing the level of adherence to the Freedom of Information Act by the three branches of authority; legislative, executive, and judicial.

 Officials from the Ministry Finance stated that the Ministry seeks to facilitate free access of information to its records in a way that goes in line with the previously set laws and regulations for this matter. They pointed that the current omission of some reports from the Ministry’s website is due to technical reasons that have to do with the website’s reconstruction.

 The report produced by AMAN included a set of recommendations mainly; the need for embedding the freedom of Information Law in the General Budget Law and the Financial and Administrative Control Bureau Law and Bylaws, the need for adopting transparent mechanisms and facilitating the public’s access to free information while identifying the exceptions for these mechanisms and making them known to the public, the need for expanding and developing mechanisms for disseminating the report of the Financial Control Bureau, the need for developing the Ministry of Finance’s website to include more information, and the need for raising the awareness among the Ministry of Finance’s employees towards the Freedom of Information Act through conducting capacity building workshops or through developing a special employee manual on the topic.