CABINET HAS given instructions for the Access to Information Act to be amended and for it be implemented on a phased basis beginning October 1.
Information Minister Burchell Whiteman made the announcement Monday, at the weekly post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House.
In April, it was disclosed that the implementation of the Act would be postponed from August 1, 2003.
The Act, which was passed in Parliament last year, will be first implemented in seven Government agencies, with implementation in all agencies and departments expected by 2004.
The agencies are: the Ministries of Finance and Planning, Local Government, Community Development and Sport, the Cabinet Office, The National Works Agency, the Planning Institute of Jamaica and the Jamaica Information Service.
With the passing of the Access to Information Act into law, Jamaicans, for the first time since Independence in 1962, will have access to some Cabinet documents as a provision of the Act allows for such documents to be made accessible for general viewing after 30 years in the archives.
