B. PAIA: How it works (or does not work) “Despite the fact that PAIA has been operational since 2001, there are still far too many public and private bodies failing, or blatantly refusing, to comply with the Act.”
The Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) was introduced in 2000 as a legal process
to enable people to access information, a right which is guaranteed in the South Africa’s democratic Constitution. PAIA was planned to provide a legal mechanism to make it easier for people to get information. It sets out the rules an institution should follow about what kinds of information should be made available on request; and it provides steps to take when a government institution or other organisation refuses to give out information. Activists today say that, in practice, PAIA has been used not as a last resort to access information, but rather as a way to prevent giving information to the public. Institutions often refuse to supply even open and available information; they will agree to provide that information if there is a formal PAIA request for its release. This means that even the most basic requests are stalled, and getting answer takes time, money and human resources. Activists who request information to deal with a burning issue in the community find PAIA is often more of a blockage than help. The TRC database was only released eight years after SAHA filed a PAIA request.
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“’You file a PAIA request, and then wait three months to see if the officials even respond. When there is no response after three months, you then put in a follow-up request. Then you wait another month to see if there is a response to that. If the follow-up is ignored or refused, you can appeal to the senior official at the institution – but that takes more time. And then you can appeal to the courts which can take years “
