14 Feb 2022

Coordinator of government online services, Mr Pontsho Pusoetsile has urged public officers, private sector and the public in general to be vigilant of various forms of cyber threats while using online services.

Speaking during a two-day workshop on cyber security for government public relations officers and journalists at Big Valley Lodge near Lobatse recently, Mr Pusoetsile said more effort should be put on educating society about cyber security.

“As we go online as government, as banks go online, as entertainment goes online, as education goes online, as health provision goes online, it calls on the citizens to be ready for these online services. And we should all know the risks.

One can talk to the risks around children, one can also talk to the economy itself,” he said.

Mr Pusoetsile stated that the economy should be ready to provide services online because digital transformation was a critical aspect of government’s turnaround strategy.

He highlighted that a digitized economy would lead to efficient service provision and would attract investors.

“If our environment makes it hard for people to invest they would move to other countries. These are the key pressure points that make us feel that we should have a transformative change when it comes to digitization,” he said.

He therefore said through the SmartBots, government would effect transformative change by making public officers and citizens ready for a knowledge economy.

He said the drive was in process to connect communities of all gazetted settlements to the digital space in the coming two financial years. He said even the smallest village would be connected by Fibre or radio links.

Speaking during the workshop, Ministry of Transport and Communications deputy permanent secretary, Mr Cecil Masiga explained that more measures were still required to protect the country’s economy and the public from cyber threats.

He said the measures include legislation on data protection and respect for individual privacies.

He said it was a risk for data from Botswana to continue being hosted in other countries.

He also advised government ministries and the private sector to develop policies and strategies of protecting their online systems against cyber threats.

Facilitating on cyber threats, a communications expert from Cyber4Dev Organization, Ms Sylvia Beamish, cyber threats include spyware emails, scamming, phishing, online extortion, and many more.

She advised people to avoid giving permission to software in their computers and cell phones without careful consideration.

The objective of the workshop was to capacitate government public relations officers and the media with understanding and knowledge of cyber security which is essential to the roll out of the digital transformation agenda. ENDs