A top minister in Botswana has pledged that the government will offer its own freedom of information bill next year after having killed FOI proposals for several years.
The Minister for Presidential Affairs and Public Administration, Mokgweetsi Masisi, told The Gazette in an interview that it will not be tabled in the November session of Parliament because the president’s State of the Nation address occupies the members’ time then.
According to The Gazette, Masisi indicated disappointment in the recent defeat of the bill and said the government is “conscious of exercising its mandate responsibly.”
The bill by the leader of the opposition, Dumelang Saleshando, could not be adopted Masisi said and an amendment process would have lead to rewriting the whole bill. The government trashed the bill in a lengthy document when it was rejected recently. (See previous FreedomInfo.org report.)
The Gazette report suggests, as other observers have indicated, that some members of the ruling Botswana Democratic Party would have supported the bill. The Gazette reports on remarks by Saleshando:
He said in the beginning BDP MPs supported the Bill in its entirety; a strong lobby by the Office of the President (OP) persuaded them to kill the Bill. “We are dealing with a government that thinks that there is value in maintaining a secretive system. The BDP was unable to offer any proposals to improve the Bill,” he said.
He said the BDP’s attitude was to set the country in a backward mode; other countries have come up with more ambitious laws. “In Sweden you don’t have to make a written request; you just get information on demand. But here there is a cry that 21 days will bring the country to a standstill,” he said.
Saleshando said Botswana is likely to see a Bill labeled Freedom of Information which in fact will be a protection of information Bill.
He warned the society to guard against this, that Bill should be subjected to scrutiny; the Opposition will not accept a sub-standard law, he stressed.
“We are aware of international standards; we will vote against any Bill that is sub-standard,” he promised.
Saleshando said while his Bill was killed, at least ordinary Batswana now know something about freedom of information.
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