Public yet to request access—Tukula
Three days after the office of the Director of Public Officers’ Declarations launched the public access to the declarations, members of the public are yet to apply for access to details of the declared wealth.
The public was supposed to start applying to the director to have access to details of assets for public officers who made their declarations, immediately after the launch on Monday.
Director of Public Officers’ Declarations, Chris Tukula, said in an interview yesterday his office was yet to receive any request for access from members of the general public other than the media fraternity.
He said: “So far, it is only the media that have applied for access. No member of the public has come forward with an application. But we have had a number of them just calling to find out procedures and seeking clarifications on how they could go about it.”
The director said he suspected the public was not coming forward because of doubt that his office could really provide details of political leaders’ wealth without any consequences.
Said Tukula: “This concept was all along shrouded in secrecy and there is need for massive public awareness about what the whole law entails. Otherwise being a new phenomenon most people don’t believe we can actually release information on the President’s wealth.”
He said observations have revealed that there is a huge gap between what the assets law says and how the public understands it.
Tukula said the trend was not very different worldwide where members of the media and civil society are the ones who usually use the public information more than ordinary citizens.n
