The severe criticism followed the failure of certain ministers to respond to parliamentary questions, which in turn has a damaging effect on service delivery. Nasha's turn on civil servants comes against the background of a new round of words between the Office of the President and the private media that becomes especially strident when aimed at us at Mmegi. We stand accused of concentrating on the negative in our reportage, of lack of balance and depth and of shallow reasoning. While we have never proclaimed ourselves to be omniscient, we find it difficult to understand these charges because we operate in an environment of near-zero public information for the mere reason that government has a dismal view of the primary reason of our existence. This essentially means that because knowledge is power, all the posturing that goes on Government Enclave about empowerment is at best clichd since the government has only antipathy for those whose aim is the attainment of an informed and educated nation. And the logic is the most tortured because attempts are being made to obfuscate issues when the aim of the government is to withhold and conceal information from the very public on behalf of which it proclaims to function. On the obverse, especially when it becomes difficult to burrow the unbearable secrets of its operations, government seeks to enshroud them, in the process deceiving the very people on whose behalf it pretends to function. But concealment of public information is like concealment of pregnancy by bundling teenagers, hence the government behaves as though those who seek to hold it to account are common criminals.
It is unfortunate that the government should so hold, as it clearly does, that transparency and accountability are hostile to its version of democracy because we do not intend to fail in our duty to hold it up against the light of day. It does not matter how determined the government believes itself to be to follow the path of corruption and then blame the messenger for exposing it, we shall not tire in the noble course of exposing the scourge. Away from the rotten heap of corruption and the malefactors on Government Enclave, we will continue to report on the daily frustrations of ordinary Batswana who are denied what is due to them in the wide arena of service delivery.
