A controversial piece of law, Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority (BOCRA) Bill, is currently being debated in parliament and from the look of things; the public and a lot of other stakeholders were yet again left out when this bill was drafted. Surprisingly, even members of parliament, who are the lawmakers, have not been consulted on a bill that they are expected to endorse into law.
Almost every country has Communications and Broadcasting authorities. The difference lies in their purpose and scope of work, which vary slightly from country to country. For some countries, Botswana included, the authority exists to suppress the flow of information and muzzle the private media. Worse, Botswana has followed in the footsteps of those countries that seek to infringe on the rights of the citizens by monitoring their private conversations. The government of Botswana still refuses with impunity, to license community radio stations.
Botswana should not have looked all the way to Iran for benchmarking because Namibia recently established regulations on various broadcasting and communications policies similar to the ones we are trying to bring here. It is clear that many lessons could have been learnt from them. Before the draft regulations made it to the Namibian parliament, the Communications Regulatory Authority of Namibia, in terms of the Communications Act of 2009, gave notice of public hearings where the general public was afforded the chance to express their comments and objections. The public made oral and written submissions from all over the country. Stakeholders such as MultiChoice Namibia, Telecom Namibia, Wireless Technologies Namibia and MTC were all invited to submit comments and recommendations on the draft regulations. They submitted some objections to the draft and their input was acknowledged and incorporated.
