RTI Commission petitioned after YEA reportedly withholds contract details

Investigative outlet The Fourth Estate has petitioned the Right To Information (RTI) Commission after the Youth Employment Agency failed to release contract and programme records requested under Ghana’s RTI law.

The petition seeks a review of the Youth Employment Agency’s refusal to disclose information requested by The Fourth Estate reporter, Philip Teye Agbove, following what the organisation describes as repeated breaches of the Right to Information Act, 2019 (Act 989).

According to the petition, Mr. Agbove filed an RTI request on August 1, 2025, asking the YEA to provide a list of contracts signed with Zoomlion Ghana Limited between 2017 and 2024.

The request also sought details of a Memorandum of Understanding the agency entered into with G4S Security Services Ghana in March 2025 to recruit 6,000 youth.

However, the YEA’s Information Officer did not respond within the 14 days required by law.

After the statutory period had elapsed, Mr. Agbove pursued an internal review by writing to the Chief Executive Officer of the Agency, Malik Basintale, on September 15, 2025, requesting the release of the information.

The move was grounded in Section 31 of Act 989, which states: “Except as otherwise provided in this Act, a person aggrieved by a decision of the information officer of a public institution may submit an application for internal review of that decision to the head of the public institution.”

Despite the appeal, the YEA head also failed to provide the requested records.

Section 35 of the Act provides further clarity on such situations, noting that “Where the head of the public institution fails to give a decision on a request for internal review within 15 days, the head of that public institution is deemed to have affirmed the original decision of the information officer.”

By this provision, Mr. Basintale is deemed to have upheld the Information Officer’s decision not to disclose the information.

In a separate RTI request dated September 19, 2025, Mr. Agbove sought information relating to the Kayayei Empowerment Training Centres, including expenditure records and other related details.

Once again, the YEA did not respond within the mandatory 14-day period, even after more than a month had passed.

An internal appeal was subsequently filed with the CEO on October 24, 2025, urging the agency to comply with the law and release the information. As with the earlier request, no response was issued.

Citing what it describes as a pattern of persistent non-compliance by both the Information Officer and the head of the agency, The Fourth Estate escalated the matter to the RTI Commission for redress.

The RTI Commission has since acknowledged receipt of the petition, paving the way for a review of the YEA’s handling of the information requests and its adherence to Ghana’s access-to-information regime.