Webinar on ‘The Right to Information and the Private Sector’

Published on DailyFT

Creating awareness and engaging the private sector on one of the most important anti-corruption tools in a democracy, the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce will conduct a webinar on ‘The Right to Information and the Private Sector’ on Tuesday, 18 January 2022.

The webinar is conducted in collaboration with Transparency International Sri Lanka (TISL), the Sri Lankan chapter of Transparency International (TI), the leading global movement against corruption. TISL was a strong advocate for the creation of a RTI law in Sri Lanka for many years, and has since its enactment been providing training and assistance to public authorities, civil society, and the general public on RTI.

As RTI is one of the most important anti-corruption tools which allows citizens and businesses to access information held by public authorities, the webinar will highlight the salient points of the Right to Information (RTI) Act of 2016, in which the private sector has been identified as public authorities liable to respond to RTI requests in certain, specific instances.

The session will offer insights into the benefits of RTI, including how the private sector can proactively utilise it to ensure greater transparency and enhance positive public perception as entities committed to high standards of corporate disclosure and integrity, while also using it to address internal operational concerns.

The webinar will be conducted by leading experts in the fields of anti-corruption and governance, trade and policy development, and legal affairs. Transparency International Sri Lanka Deputy Executive Director Sankitha Gunaratne, and Verité Research, Research Director Subhashini Abeysinghe will present the session, which will be moderated by Mokshini Jayamanne, Attorney-at-Law.

The corporate partners for the webinar are London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) and Hutch.

The webinar will be conducted from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. on 18 January via MS Teams.