Botswana
ment for their consideration in 2003. Government is still applying
its mind to the draft and has yet to pass it on to parliament. It was
felt by some panelists that the NBB could do more to urge government to speed up the process. Others argued that the NBB should
have found a policy in place when it was appointed and that the NBB
went out of its way to get it developed regardless. They complained
that no media house or existing broadcaster ever made serious noise
about the stalled policy.
SCORES:
Individual scores:

2, 2, 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 2

Average score:

1.5

3.2

The appointments procedure for members of the regulatory
body is open and transparent and involves civil society.

ANALYSIS:
As outlined under 3.1 appointments are made by the minister. When
the present board was appointed all names submitted by civil society were ignored. The composition of the Nominating Committee
was questioned with one member being appointed by the Law Society and two (a representative of the President’s Office and the Vice
Chancellor of the University) being appointees of the President.
This appointments procedure for the committee was seen by some
panelists as being biased towards government. It was argued that
such bias was compounded by the fact that after the committee has
nominated, it is the ministry that appoints the board.
An example for an alternative way of doing things is the Press Council
of Botswana, where a Selection Committee invited people to apply
and these were interviewed with the public and media present.
Interviews for NBB candidates took place behind closed doors. The
African Media Barometer - Botswana 2005

23

Select target paragraph3