By Robert Hart, Staff Reporter 
Whiteman
THE SENATE yesterday began debating the amendment to the Access to Information Act, but the members of the Upper House will have to wait until next week to vote on the Bill.
The delay on the vote was sparked by concerns raised by Opposition Senator Bruce Golding who said he was dissatisfied with the amendment Bill in its current form.
But, by the end of yesterday's extended sitting of the Senate, the Government and Opposition had agreed "in principle" to a change in the amendment.
The change, according to Senator Burchell Whiteman, Leader of Government Business, will ensure that all public authorities are automatically brought under the ambit of the Act by a certain time (18 months). In the interim, power would be provided to the Minister to declare which public authorities would be subject to the Act.
"Having taken that decision, we ask the technical officers of the Chief Parliamen-tary Council to rework the amendment to make provisions for what we have decided," Senator Whiteman said.
Prior to the agreement, Senator Golding had argued that the amendment being debated, which sought to accommodate a 'phasing-in period' for the implementation of the Act, would "serve to undermine the force of the provision" that ensures that no authority has the power to restrict access. The amendment stated that the Minister would be authorised to declare the public authorities to which the Act may apply. There would have therefore been no provision preventing the Minister from delaying, indefinitely, the phasing-in of any particular Government department.
"I understand that there is a problem that has to be addressed," Senator Golding said, accepting that not all of the agencies to which the Act is intended to apply would likely be able "to get up to speed" in the short run.
"We know the state of some government departments in terms of their record keeping and so on," he added.
Senator Golding had also complained that the initially proposed phasing-in period of 24 months was unnecessarily long as it should not take two years for a public body to ready itself to provide the required information to the public.
The Senate also took time to examine the Access to Information Regulations, 2003, which had been tabled last week and were the final hurdle preventing the long-awaited debate on the amendment Act. The Government had decided to hold off on the debate until both documents were laid before the Senate.
With the passing into law of the Act, Jamaicans will have access to certain documents, including some from Cabinet, which were previously classified. The Act, which will give the public greater access to Government information, was first passed in the Senate on June 28, 2002.
