The Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Kuwait Transparency Society, Majid Mufrej Al-Mutairi, stated that the society has learned that a majority of government institutions do not adhere to the Law No. 12 of 2020 regarding the right to access information.
He pointed out that the society has received many reports about the intention of some government agencies to disrupt the provisions of this law under false pretexts, explicitly violating what is stated in Article (3) of the law, explaining that many government agencies have not yet issued the administrative decision to nominate the competent employee to receive requests for access to information and giving him full powers to carry out his role to the fullest.
He pointed out that this law stems from international obligations and agreements as one of the international matrices concerned with promoting integrity and combating corruption and aims to free access to information.
He added, during the months of October and November 2021, the society had launched an awareness campaign to train people on the application of the law and 40 training courses for most of the government agencies and companies addressed by the law.
Al-Mutairi stressed the need of a special court to consider cases filed by citizens and residents to enable them to exercise their legal and constitutional rights, to take retribution against defaulting parties, and to apply punitive penalties on them in accordance with the law to protect the name of Kuwait in front of the international community.
He concluded by emphasizing that these procedures are one of the international standards for measuring the extent of Kuwait’s commitment to implementing the United Nations Convention against Corruption, based on which Kuwait’s score in international indicators is measured.