As the Freedom of Information Bill goes back to the floor of parliament, the Media Institute of Southern Africa - MISA Botswana Chapter wishes to once again appeal to MPs to listen to the wishes of the people and pass the bill into law. It is an understatement to say the road was long and winding but it is encouraging to see MPs asserting their authority and insisting on seeing the bill to the end despite efforts by the minister to delay the bill further without offering concrete reasons why. When the debates on the bill were suspended for further consultation, the Chapter complained that the position of government on the bill was not clear but sadly even after meeting with Minister Masisi and his team, we are not clear on where exactly, is the bill so fundamentally flawed that it has to be trashed. The Freedom of Information Task Force hopes that the presidency will be inclined to respond to this article and suggest that if indeed it does respond, it must spare us the generalities and just point to where the train smash is! Batswana need to know!
When we met at the parliamentary general assembly on July 26, 2012, Minister of Presidential Affairs and Public Administration, Mokgweetsi Masisi asked for a chance to go and meet the sponsor of the bill, Dumelang Saleshando and his team before the two parties could meet with the rest of the MPs. This gave us a lot of hope albeit for a short time because at the meeting very little came out except to hear the minister openly announcing even before we could enter into any discussion that government has decided not to support the bill. Why did the minister ask for the meeting in the first place? In trying to explain this position, the minister said they have identified even more problems with the bill. Surprisingly when we demanded to hear the 'many issues', the officers repeated the same issues that were raised by a mysterious memo passed to ruling party MPs when the bill was due for a second reading. Thus after the discussions it emerged that there were really only four issues of concern for government and that was what the MP and mover of the motion, reported to the general assembly of parliament on August 2, 2012.
