South Africa's exemplary access-to-information legislation has had next to no effect so far.

So few requests for information have been made under the Promotion of Access to Information Act and there has been so little compliance with its provisions by state and private organisations that the Act has yet to bring about greater social or political transparency.

The Act became law last year. It gives individuals and interest groups the right to information that affects them.

The lack of interest shown by the public is partly due to ignorance of the law, a meeting convened by the Open Democracy Advice Centre, an advocacy group, heard in Cape Town this week.

But it is also due to the public's "mindset of obeying authority". The centre found that more than half the public bodies interviewed on the anniversary of the Act had never heard of it, while a quarter were implementing it. In the private sector, implementation was only 11%.

The number of requests made in terms of the Act is unknown but is believed to be small.

The SA Human Rights Commission, which monitors the use of the Act by public bodies, says that so few have provided it with the proper reports - only 20 organisations out of 800 - that it is impossible to estimate requests.

According to the commission, government departments often stalled when asked for data.

Frustrated: Khulumani Support Group

The Khulumani Support Group, a group of apartheid victims demanding reparations, has tried for four years without success to compel the Department of Justice to provide details of the government's reparations policy.

Despite assurances by officials that the policy would be provided to them imminently, it allegedly was not, so Khulumani made a request in terms of the Act last year.

The department did not respond within 30 days and, following inquiries by Khulumani, said the request could not be processed because a R35 revenue stamp had not been provided.

Khulumani decided to pay the R35 again.

"We said: 'So what, we'll double-pay - just give us the information,' " said Shirley Gunn, a representative of the group.

"Then we received a letter of acknowledgement. But three months passed and there was dead silence."

The silence was taken as a refusal and in June Khulumani served papers on the Justice Department and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

The deadline for the Justice Department to file its answering papers was September 28, but a bureaucratic bungle by the court led to the deadline being extended until the end of this month.

Pretty successful: SA History Archives

Verne Harris, the director of the SA History Archives, has had success in using the Act.

The non-governmental organisation, which is compiling an archive of the struggle against apartheid, has obtained:

• 41 lists of Military Intelligence files, 38 of which were not provided to the truth commission;

• Files on surveillance of the End Conscription Campaign during the 1980s; and

• 14 boxes of records related to Steve Biko.

The SA History Archive has also compelled the military - through an out-of-court settlement - to remove the blackout on the names of countries and companies in certain Military Intelligence records.

Harris, who is assisting US lawyer Ed Fagan in his bid on behalf of apartheid victims to sue US multinationals that supported apartheid, says the release of the unedited records has provided a list of all the countries in which Military Intelligence operated, which will help the case.

But there have also been several failures, says Harris, including:

• The disclosure of the whereabouts of 34 boxes of sensitive truth commission files. High Court applications are under way to compel the Department of Justice to provide these details; and

• Several unsuccessful requests to the police for documents, which have apparently been lost.

With acknowledgements to Carol Paton and Sunday Times.