Mboki Chilisa, an attorney and the chairperson of MISA Botswana has said Botswana lacks laws that facilitate the work of the media.
“As the theme here today is about information, what is worth noting is that in Botswana, we do not have a freedom of information (FOI) act,” Chilisa said.
The Collins Chilisa Consultants proprietor said freedom of information is critical to the work of the media because information enables the media to report accurately and leads to a more informed citizenry.
“One of the greatest challenges that our media faces is that there is no legislation that speaks to access to information and that perhaps might explain why corruption is rampant in our country,” Chilisa said.
Present at the discussion was Director Corporate Communications & Consumer Affairs Aaron Nyelesi on behalf of the Minister of Transport and Communications. Nyelesi said as a regulator they are facing challenges that have come with the dawn of Information Communication Technology (ICT).
“With the advent of mobile technology and mobile phone camera, everybody is potentially a journalist, where whatever they come across, they churn out as allegedly news which is a big challenge because a lot of us don’t subscribe to the modus operandi of those of us who are trained as journalists,” Nyelisi said. In terms of commercial broadcasting, Nyelesi said Botswana’s broadcast media’s growth is stagnant. “Our media is not growing as fast as we expected to at least when you are talking about commercial broadcasting because it is an expensive venture to go into and, now the few establishments that we have are challenged by the advent of competition from ICT,” he said.
Motilola Adejare, a lecturer from the University of Botswana’s media studies department said: “We cannot speak about a knowledge-based economy without access to information.” Acknowledging that not everyone can be a journalist, as justified by the mushrooming of online citizen journalism, Adejare said: “As academics and researchers, what we are trying to do is train our students to know that journalism still remains the purveyor of those who are trained. All of us cannot be journalists.”
The director of MISA Botswana, Tefo Phathswane added that media regulation in the country still remains a problem.
“Currently our government is not moving towards where other democracies are going. Very young democracies like Namibia and South Africa have a FOI act,” Phatshwane said.
Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) director of communications speaking on democratizing information, said Botswana has slipped into the state where there are few people controlling much of what has to reach the nation.
The Botswana Editors Forum (BEF) in partnership with Kgalagadi Breweries Limited (KBL) hosted a panel discussion to commemorate World Press Freedom Day under the theme “Information as a public good.”
