The Fourth Estate drags Malik Basintale’s Youth Employment Agency to RTI Commission

The Fourth Estate has petitioned the Right to Information (RTI) Commission over the Youth Employment Agency’s (YEA) refusal to release information requested under RTI law.

The petition seeks a review of the Agency’s refusal to provide information requested by a reporter with The Fourth Estate, Philip Teye Agbove.

On August 1, 2025, Philip filed an RTI request at the YEA seeking the list of contracts the agency signed with Zoomlion Ghana Limited between 2017 and 2024. The request also sought details of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) the YEA signed with G4S Security Services Ghana to recruit 6,000 youth in March 2025.

However, the Information Officer at the YEA did not respond within the law’s stipulated 14-day timeframe.

Following the refusal, Philip filed an internal appeal to the Chief Executive Officer of the Agency, Malik Basintale, on September 15, 2025, urging him to release the information.

 This was in line with Section 31 of the Right to Information Act, 2019 (Act 989).

“Except as otherwise provided in this Act, a person aggrieved by a decision of the information officer of a public institution may submit an application for internal review of that decision to the head of the public institution.”

But Mr. Basintale also refused to released the information. 

According to Section 35 of the Act, “Where the head of the public institution fails to give a decision on a request for internal review within 15 days, the head of that public institution is deemed to have affirmed the original decision of the information officer.”

By this provision, Mr Basintale is deemed to have endorsed the YEA information officer’s decision not to release the information.

In a separate request on September 19, 2025, Philip requested information on the Kayayei Empowerment Training Centres, including expenditure records and related details.

Again, the YEA’s Information Officer refused to respond, even after more than a month, contrary to the law’s mandatory 14-day response period.

Philip subsequently petitioned the CEO on October 24, 2025, seeking an internal review to compel the release of the information.

Just like the earlier appeal, Mr. Basintale again failed to respond.

After these repeated refusals, The Fourth Estate has escalated the matter to the RTI Commission, citing persistent non-compliances by both the Information Officer and the CEO of the YEA.

Meanwhile, the RTI Commission has acknowledged receipt of The Fourth Estate’s petition.