Monday, June 26, 2006

Limited information access for foreigners

There are two important bills currently discussed by legislators. The first on state secrecy and the second on the public access to information. While some considered both bills as contradictory one another, others says both could complement each other. While the second bill would give more freedom to public at large to access information, foreigners will have limited access and that my create new business for locals.

Communication and Information Minister Sofyan Djalil told the press Monday that The Freedom to Get Public Information Bill would differentiate among others what kind of information is accessible and not for all, accessible for Indonesian (people & companies) but optional for foreigners, and completely not accessible for foreigners except they have local partners for research and business purposes.
There are two school of thoughts on both bills. First, those who want the State Secrecy Law to be implemented earlier than The Freedom to get Public Information. Second, those who want the former should be implemented after the latter like in USA.
The latter would boost public's scrutiny over many policies or issues, and some claimed of better governance. At the moment, it's so difficult to get information about owners of a company even though company deeds are classified as public information. People could still get such information but at a price, outrageously high!

READ MORE!!!

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home