Maharaj urges Parliament to reject FOIA amendment

Akash Sama­roo

For­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship min­is­ter Dr De­vant Ma­haraj is warn­ing that pro­posed amend­ments to the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act (FOIA) could weak­en gov­ern­ment trans­paren­cy, ac­cus­ing the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion of un­der­min­ing leg­is­la­tion it in­tro­duced more than two decades ago.

Ma­haraj, who said he has used the FOIA ex­ten­sive­ly in the courts over the past 20 years, crit­i­cised a pro­posed change al­low­ing pub­lic au­thor­i­ties to pub­lish re­quired state­ments ei­ther in a dai­ly news­pa­per or on a pub­licly ac­ces­si­ble web­site.