Rakgare’s speed must not make him miss the runway

Mmegi Editor | Monday July 10, 2023 06:00

The bid falls right under his ambit and any successful attempt will mean a feather in his cap. When he addressed the media this week, Rakgare rightly indicated that the AFCON bid was a national project and does not belong to individuals.

This was before he launched into a tirade criticising the media for what he perceived as negative reporting around the AFCON bid. Rakgare feels that the media should adopt the proverbial see, hear and speak no evil, akin to demanding blind patriotism from the men and women of the press. At times, the Minister resorted to whataboutery (a technique of responding to an accusation with a counter-accusation or raising a different issue), when he could have led the media to the right answers.

Last month, Mmegi carried a report that stadia upgrades for the bid would cost around P10 billion. It would appear this figure riled the Minister who said it was untrue when he addressed the media. This comes a month after the story was published and the report was entirely based on the bid document, which Rakgare and the government submitted to CAF on May 23. Unless if the Minister is saying the figures contained in the document are nothing but concocted falsehoods, we find it disingenuous of him to discredit a report without offering the ‘correct’ version. While Rakgare said the bid committee and everyone else involved in the process was open to the media, there have been a lot of grey areas.

One reporter raised a query during the press conference on why the State media appears to be the only ‘major’ outlet of information regarding the bid. Rakgare said all media houses should be treated the same. But we are aware of Machiavellian manoeuvres where the State media is regarded as sympathetic and therefore, in a better position to parrot the government’s narrative of the day.

However, as Rakgare said, the AFCON bid is a national project and thus it should be reflected in the treatment of different media houses. Rakgare should be reminded that the media, despite the expected sense of patriotism, still has a duty to safeguard tenets of democracy, which Botswana espouses. The watchdog role cannot be sacrificed at the expense of blind patriotism.

We are alive to the fact that where projects of this nature are involved, the floodgates of corruption easily open. We cannot as media, therefore, in the middle of the bid excitement adopt the mantra of see, hear and speak no evil. We are fully behind the 2027 AFCON bid, but the media cannot suddenly abandon its role of safeguarding transparency of democratic process. Rakgare made a name for himself as an abrasive radio journalist who did not take any prisoners, and therefore, he should know better.

Thought of the day

“You are not supposed to be so blind with patriotism, that you cannot face reality. Wrong is wrong no matter who says it.”- Malcom X