06 Dec 2021

Transforming Botswana Television and Radio Botswana from state to public broadcasters will enhance the quality of programming, which will serve to address real issues affecting Batswana.

Presenting a motion calling for the transformation of the state broadcasters in Parliament on Friday, Mahalapye East MP, Mr Yandani Boko said the purpose of public broadcasters was to also provide programming capable of enlightening, informing and entertaining audiences.

He said according to the universally accepted definition of public broadcaster, the model embodied several key principles among which he cited universal geographic accessibility, universal appeal as well as contributing to national identity and sense of community.

 Mr Boko stated that the challenge with the current set-up of state media where government controlled content and afforded less coverage to the opposition and other dissenting opinions was wrong.

He said there was abuse of state media by government for purposes of self-preservation as the media projected government’s voice over any other opinion.

He said Botswana was supposed to be a democratic country that catered for the views of different sections of society in the promotion of freedom of speech.

Mr Boko also said the media should be seen as an enabler of democracy, as a free, objective and well-skilled media was an essential component of any democratic society.

Debating the motion, Assistant Minister for Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration, Mr Dumezweni Mthimkhulu said government was not interfering with the editorial independence of the state broadcasters in question, but that what it did was to ensure that the information shared with the nation was not injurious to the public good.

 Mr Mthimkhulu also indicated that it was worth noting that public broadcasters by nature got funding through the issuance of television licenses.

Saying it would be premature to remove the state broadcasters from state control, Mr Mthimkhulu  pointed out that such a move would deny many Batswana access to information as most Batswana would not afford the licenses.

Expressing confidence in the service that the state broadcasters rendered to the public, the assistant minister explained that in any democratic society government not only had a right, but more fundamentally a responsibility to be accountable to its citizens by continuously providing them with accurate and authoritative information.

This, he said, was critical today particularly in the face of the phenomenon of fake news, and enjoined any responsible government to provide trusted sources of information that would be accessed by all citizens including the less privileged.ends