30 May 2016

Acting Minister for Presidential Affairs and Public Administration, Mr Dikgang Makgalemele says government communicators must ensure timely, authoritative, coherent and coordinated information communication to the public.

Speaking at the closing ceremony of a media training workshop for government communicators held in Gaborone on May 26, Mr Makgalemele said in that way, Botswana should become better informed about itself while the world would also become well informed about the country.

That, he said would require the entire public service, spearheaded by government communicators, to embrace an integrated approach to communication, from its public statements, through advertising to other forms of public relations. 

“We must become ‘a government that listens with many ears, but speaks with one voice,” he said.

Demand on government to provide accurate and timely information to both its own citizens and interested external parties, he added, had grown immensely with emergence and convergence of new information technologies. 

“In this respect, we continue to look to the BGCIS network to be a driver of government communication across diverse media platforms,” he said.

BGCIS, which collaborated with the American Embassy in organising last week’s media training, had been mandated to coordinate government communication, in liaison with enhanced corporate communications units in all line ministries. 

“To realise this goal, we are also currently undertaking new initiatives to promote enhanced communications delivery through various media platforms, as well as the greater coordination of all government communications through public relations units linked together by the BGCIS network.”

Such efforts, taken together, he said were consistent with government’s recognition that the society’s overall capacity to compete with the rest of the world was becoming increasingly dependent on ability to effectively communicate both to citizens and the outside world through various media.

“In this context, effective public service communications have become a prerequisite for our realization of other forms of service delivery. We have a common and collective duty to ensure that Batswana are better informed about their opportunities and challenges; but also that the world, including of course potential investors, are better informed about Botswana.

Consistent with this vision the Ministry of State Presidency has challenged itself to put systems in place that will allow government to connect with all Batswana every day,” Mr Makgalemele said had fundamentally altered many of previous assumptions about how government should engage in both proactive and reactive communication. Ends