Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A so­cial and po­lit­i­cal ac­tivist has sued the Min­istry of Health over its fail­ure to re­spond to his re­quest to dis­close fi­nan­cial de­tails re­lat­ed to the Chron­ic Dis­ease As­sis­tance Pro­gramme (CDAP).

In his ju­di­cial re­view law­suit filed this week, lawyers for Her­shael Rame­sar claimed that the min­istry breached its statu­to­ry oblig­a­tions un­der the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act (FOIA) by mis­han­dling his dis­clo­sure re­quest.

CDAP was launched in 2003 to pro­vide free pre­scrip­tion drugs and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal items to cit­i­zens suf­fer­ing from chron­ic ill­ness­es.

While the pro­gramme ini­tial­ly fo­cused on se­nior cit­i­zens with di­a­betes, hy­per­ten­sion, glau­co­ma and car­diac dis­ease, it has since been ex­pand­ed to in­clude cit­i­zens suf­fer­ing from a wide range of ill­ness­es, in­clud­ing asth­ma, arthri­tis, men­tal de­pres­sion, epilep­sy, Parkin­son’s dis­ease, and thy­roid dis­eases.

Rame­sar’s lawyers, led by at­tor­ney Jagdeo Singh, claimed that their client sought the dis­clo­sure un­der the pro­vi­sions of the FOIA af­ter Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh re­vealed that $246 mil­lion had been ex­pend­ed on the pro­gramme be­tween 2020 and 2024.

In his FOIA re­quest sent in ear­ly Jan­u­ary, Rame­sar sought a com­plete list of the sup­pli­ers of the med­ica­tion and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal items for the pro­gramme from 2015 to the present and the monies that were paid to them.

He al­so sought in­for­ma­tion on the quan­ti­ty of drugs pur­chased for the pro­gramme that ex­pired each year dur­ing the pe­ri­od and a list of items that were out of stock last year.

While the min­istry’s per­ma­nent sec­re­tary ac­knowl­edged re­ceipt of his re­quest, it (the min­istry) took 52 days to of­fi­cial­ly re­spond and re­quest an ex­ten­sion to make a de­ci­sion.

Rame­sar filed the case af­ter his lawyers re­fused to grant the ex­ten­sion.

They claimed that the min­istry’s de­layed re­sponse was un­fair, un­rea­son­able, and un­jus­ti­fi­able.

“The de­fen­dant al­so failed to pro­vide a time frame with­in which ei­ther a sub­stan­tive re­sponse or the copies of the re­quest doc­u­ments would be pro­vid­ed to the claimant; and fur­ther, the de­fen­dant failed to con­firm whether it would be pro­vid­ed to the claimant at all,” they said.

They point­ed to Sec­tion 15 of the FOIA, which man­dates a pub­lic au­thor­i­ty to ap­prove or de­ny a re­quest as soon as prac­ti­ca­ble but no lat­er than 30 days af­ter it (the re­quest) is made.

“The de­fen­dant’s fail­ure/re­fusal/omis­sion to make a de­ci­sion to ap­prove or grant the claimant’s FOIA re­quest amounts to a fail­ure by the de­fen­dant and is a de­nial of the claimant’s right to know un­der the FOIA and is con­trary to law,” they said.

Rame­sar’s lawyers al­so sought to high­light the im­por­tance of the leg­is­la­tion.

“The FOIA is an im­por­tant facet of democ­ra­cy, as it en­ables pub­lic and pri­vate groups and in­di­vid­u­als to be in­formed of the process and out­come of the ini­tia­tives and de­ci­sions un­der­tak­en by pub­lic au­thor­i­ties,” they said.

“The ad­her­ence to the pro­vi­sions of the FOIA in­creas­es the lev­el of pub­lic par­tic­i­pa­tion in the pol­i­cy-mak­ing process and gov­ern­men­tal ini­tia­tives and ac­tiv­i­ties,” they added.

Through the law­suit, Rame­sar is seek­ing a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions over the han­dling of his re­quest and an or­der com­pelling the min­istry to ren­der a de­ci­sion with­in sev­en days.

Rame­sar is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Vashisht Seep­er­sad, Sad­dam Ho­sein, and Satesh Singh.