Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Paul Low may have outlined several challenges in justifying Putrajaya's refusal to implement a freedom of information (FOI) law but the Selangor government has proven that these hurdles can be overcomed.

This is according to Selangor speaker Hannah Yeoh who was referring to Low's claim that the FOI law is unfeasible as Putrajaya may need up to 300 information officers to deal with the load of information.

"In Selangor, we have a total of 41 information officers. Training did not cost the state government much, only RM4,362. Allowances for the information officers amounted to RM246,000.

"It takes political will to enact the FOI legislation. Without it, you will get precisely what Paul Low is talking about – excuses.

"A government that has problem disclosing information to the taxpayers is one who has many skeletons to hide," said Yeoh in a press statement today.

She said that it was "unfortunate" that Low ( photo ), as a former Transparency International-Malaysia president, had a diminishing value of transparency.

Change government, not culture

Yeoh, who is also the select committee for competency, accountability and transparency (Selcat) chairperson said her committee had this year also conducted a public hearing to evaluate the effectiveness of the state's FOI enactment.

"The FOI, like all other legislations has its shortcomings and would require tweaking from time to time but Selcat was open enough to conduct a public hearing and made its findings available online.

"The Selangor state government has similarly tabled their response to our recommendations in the current on-going session of the state assembly," she said.

Yeoh added that if Low insist that a FOI law is only possible through a change of culture in both the government and society, a better alternative was to change the federal government altogether.

"I offer a correction to the honourable minister’s statement that what we need is not a change of culture in government but a change of government itself.

"Selangor and Penang have shown the way to freedom of information, we are ready to show Paul Low and this new cabinet of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak how we can do the same for Putrajaya," she said.