Every government institution should have a programme for the disposal of its records which ensures the timely and systematic transfer/destruction of records when they are no longer required for the purposes for which they were created.
Although the ATI Act is applicable to records dating back 30 years, this does not mean that a government organization has to keep all its records for that period. Records can be disposed of when they no longer have value for current purposes, but this should only be done according to established procedures.
It is particularly important that these procedures are followed as the ATI Act provides penalties for the deliberate and willful destruction of records by officials. Some records however might have sufficient historical value to warrant them being kept for permanent preservation at the Jamaica Archives and Records
Department.
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