The President's Office has processed and provided responses to 233 Right to Information (RTI) applications submitted during the past year, Chief Government Spokesperson Mohamed Hussain Shareef has revealed.
According to the statistics presented by the Spokesperson, during the press briefing held as part of the "Presser with the Spox", the President's Office received a total of 288 RTI applications during the covered period. Of these, 233 have been successfully answered, while 55 remain pending consideration.
The breakdown reveals that between May and December of last year, the office received 182 applications and provided replies to 170 of them. Since the beginning of this year through the present date, an additional 106 applications have been received, with 63 having received responses thus far.
The Chief Government Spokesperson took the opportunity to address certain patterns observed in the submission of RTI applications. Hussain Shareef noted that RTIs are frequently submitted by anonymous individuals seeking the same information, which he suggested may not always align with the intended purpose of the transparency legislation.
He emphasised that such applications are typically submitted with specific questions aimed at achieving particular objectives, though he did not elaborate on whether this observation reflected any broader policy concerns.
Hussain Shareef also clarified the boundaries of information disclosure under the RTI framework. He stated that information which could potentially disrupt foreign relations, classified details contained in financial agreements, and matters pertaining to national security cannot be disclosed through the RTI process.
In addition to addressing RTI-related matters, the Spokesperson used the occasion to share supplementary statistics regarding the President's official international visits to various foreign countries.