Download - Media Institute of Southern Africa

BOTSWANA
State of the media in Southern Africa 2002
On whether there was ample support of attempts by the media to access information
from government, Mokgosi goes on: “Generally there is improvement
in accessing information from government. There is still a major problem of
departments and ministries not adhering to timeframes and addressing pertinent
questions adequately.”
There is a tendency to let sleeping dogs lie and bygones be bygones, which
seriously erodes rectitude. As a parting shot let us take two excerpts from
Mmegi Monitor March 10 2003 in an article headed ‘Zim Saves Bots At C/
wealth Meet’: (i) “Together with Pakistan and Western Samoa, Botswana was
in line for the guillotine at the CPU meeting for trying to muzzle the press…”
(ii) “Botswana had been blacklisted at an earlier Editors Forum, which felt
that there was need to pressurise the government to stop its intentions to promulgate
the much-criticised Mass Media bill.”
So This Is Democracy? 35