Stimulating Transparency and Accountability in Tanzania through the Access to Information Act

The right to access information is a fundamental human right and essential to democracy and development. Democratic form of government necessarily require accountability which is possible when there is transparency. Information is an essential ingredient of transparency and accountability in governance and can be used by the citizen to scrutinize public institutions. The citizenry is therefore expected to have access to information that would enable them to evaluate the performance of the government. By realizing this fact, Tanzanian parliament has passed Access to Information Act, 2016 (the ATI Act) to give citizens the right to access information from government and relevant private bodies. This paper examines the ATI Act and finds that if implemented effectively, transparency and accountability in governance can be enhanced through the ATI Act in Tanzania. The author concludes that for the ATI Act to achieve the desired objectives, massive public awareness campaign should be carried out especially at the grassroots level to educate people on existence of the ATI Act and how to use it in order to promote transparency and accountability in governance.