FREEDOM OF INFORMATION
Ian Cobain

When Trinidad and Tobago became one of the first countries in the Caribbean to introduce freedom of information legislation, it was hailed as an advance towards more open, accountable and transparent government. "Democracy rests largely upon the idea of consent," declared the attorney general of the day, "and this idea of consent depends upon people having adequate information".

Seven years on, and the country's Freedom of Information (FoI) Act has fallen almost into disuse, with few journalists exercising their rights under the law, and a handful apparently unaware of its existence. When the CPU ran a one-week training course in investigative journalism - entitled Challenging the Establishment: Transparency in Reporting - in the capital, Port of Spain, in January, it was clear just how few Caribbean journalists make use of laws offering a legally-enforceable right of access to information. Of the 19 participants, 13 of them from Trinidad and Tobago, just one, from the Jamaica Gleaner, had ever submitted a request under freedom of information laws.

Following a talk from Devant Maharaj, a Trinidadian columnist, broadcaster and FoI activist about the opportunities that the Act offers, and with the encouragement of their CPU training consultants, the participants all began to bombard public authorities with requests for information.

Four of the journalists, for example, have been submitting requests to the country's prisons department and immigration authorities in an attempt to discover how many citizens from other Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries are being held in prison for immigration offences.

They embarked on the project after hearing from defence lawyers that a number of men who came to the country in search of work, and who have committed no crime other than remaining in the country once their work permits expired, have been held in maximum-security prisons alongside men convicted of serious offences.

The journalists are attempting to find out how many CARICOM citizens are being held in this way, discover the average length of their detention, establish which countries they hail from, and perhaps contact their families.

Another group has submitted a series of FoI requests to the Ministries of Health and Education in an attempt to discover what percentage of Trinidad and Tobago's teenagers are thought to have contracted HIV/Aids - a project that was inspired by a straw poll in the south of the country that suggests the rate in some areas could be as high as eight per cent.

For good measure, the same group submitted a further FoI request to the Ministry of Finance to establish the level of under-spending by the country's health authorities - money that they say could be earmarked for sexual health programmes for 15- to 18-year-olds.

A third group is making use of the FoI Act to examine the government's apparent failure to make good on a pledge to provide accommodation for the large number of homeless people in the capital, Port of Spain.

One of the participants is employing the legislation to investigate the repeated failure of the Water and Sewerage Authority of Trinidad and Tobago to provide regular water supplies to more than two dozen districts on the islands, despite the existence of more-than-adequate water supplies. An FoI request has already been submitted to the Ministry of Social Development in an attempt to establish exactly how many households are affected. While the islands' newspapers regularly report on the plight of households without clean running water, this is thought to be the first investigation that is attempting to establish what is going wrong and why, to identify those responsible for the failures, and to suggest what needs to be done to ensure regular supplies.

A fifth group of the course participants is using the FoI Act to investigate the collapse of a series of insurance companies, and their apparent failure to make all due payments to an insurance industry contingency fund, an alleged omission that is said to have left a number of traffic accident victims facing extreme hardship.

"The Freedom of Information Act in Trinidad and Tobago is very badly under-used, despite the fact that it is easy to use, and can play a very important part of the investigative process," said Mr Maharaj.

The legislation came into force in February 2001 and covers any public bodies, including public corporations and private organisations exercising state powers. The President's office is exempt, as are Cabinet documents less than ten years old and papers concerning defence, security, international relations, personal matters and trade secrets.

In Jamaica, the Access to Information Act was adopted in July 2002 and rolled out across all government departments over three years. Only he Governor-General's office, the security and intelligence services and the judicial function of the courts are exempt.

Other countries in the region with freedom of information legislation include Belize, whose Freedom of Information Act was passed in 2000, and gives officials 14 days to respond to requests for information; Antigua and Barbuda, where the Freedom of Information Act came into force in November 2004, and allows any person to demand information from government departments, and from bodies funded or controlled by the government; the Dominican Republic, whose Law on Access to Information came into effect in July 2004. The Cayman Islands' legislative assembly passed the Freedom of Information Bill into law last August, and is now giving government departments until next January to prepare for requests for information from the public.

In Guyana, the Guyana Press Association is calling for the introduction of Freedom of Information legislation, arguing that "good governance and accountability in an evolving democracy are only achievable if the masses are given access to information".

A campaign for the introduction of freedom of information legislation in Bermuda has been launched by the island's only daily newspaper.

The Royal Gazette is calling for the government of the British Overseas Territory in the Atlantic, which has a population of less than 65,000 - to bring forward with plans for a Public Access to Information (PATI) bill. The US Consul on the island, Gregory Slayton, has spoken out in support of transparency and international organisations such as the Campaign for Freedom of Information in the UK and the Carter Center and National Freedom of Information Coalition in the United States are backing the newspaper.

All of Bermuda's quangos, committees and publicly funded bodies - of which there are more than a hundred - currently meet behind closed doors and only two release minutes.

The Royal Gazette is calling for them to open up to the public and to be more accountable to taxpayers. Editor Bill Zuill said the introduction of freedom of information legislation would be a "crowning accomplishment" for the government. Bermuda would not be the first British Overseas Territory to get a freedom of information law if the campaign is successful. The Cayman Islands passed an act last August which will come into force in January 2009.