BOTSWANA RESEARCH CONCLUSION Taking into account surveys conducted in previous years, it is evident that government ministries and departments are still not freely providing public information. Many citizens in Botswana find government departments inaccessible and information continues to be disseminated only on a selective basis. If the situation continues this way, with authorities starving their citizens of information, there will be no further development and democracy will remain vulnerable. Public information should be freely and willingly provided to the information seeker at any given time within a reasonable period. In past years the study managed to identify the most open institution, which is not the case in this year’s study due to the low scores by the respective ministries. All the ministries failed to respond to the questions that were sent to them within 21 days. THE MOST SECRETIVE PUBLIC INSTITUTION IN BOTSWANA All eight institutions surveyed scored the majority of their points through websites, as they all failed to respond to the questions or requests for information. This then meant the institutions can only be distinguished through their website scores to determine their level of openness. This continuing practice of government officials not responding to requests for information is a worrying trend as it denies the public their right to access and benefit from information held by officials. MISA Botswana is very concerned with the worrying trend of some public institutions scoring less points than the previous year and little or no improvement overall observed over several years of studies. This supports MISA Botswana’s call to the government to enact a Freedom of Information Act. It is MISA Botswana’s view that this law would go a long way towards making the government Public Relations offices much more open and useful to the information seeker. The most secretive institution for this year is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, with a total of six points. This was the lowest score, followed by the MoESD and MEWT, both scoring seven points each. Despite having accepted and acknowledged the researcher’s letter of request for information, unlike the Ministry of Local Government, these three ministries failed to accumulate points for their websites. The low scoring by the three ministries can be attributed mainly to the limited information provided by their websites, which deny users the right to access common/public information through these sites. The other feature common amongst the three is a poor user interface, which makes it difficult for users to maneuver through the websites. Special mention should also be made of the Ministry of Local Government, which refused to accept the written request for information. The reasoning behind the rejection of the letter was that the letter requested confidential information, and therefore 22 couldn’t be taken to the Public Relations office for a response until ‘certain requirements’ were met by the information seeker. Subsequently, the majority of the points scored by this ministry were from the website survey. THE MOST OPEN PUBLIC INSTITUTION IN BOTSWANA All the ministries surveyed had independent websites or pages within the Botswana government website, for which they should be commended. It should be noted however that not all these institutions had all the relevant information available in these platforms. MISA Botswana made sure that it did not reveal its identity throughout the study to avoid influencing the results. As was the case with previous surveys, government institutions continued to display signs of secrecy. All the approached institutions demanded further explanation with respect to what the information requested would be used for, as well as by whom it was being requested. At the end of the study there was no response from any of the participants, which left MISA Botswana with no other option than to identify the most open institution based largely on an evaluation of the institutions’ websites. It seems the secretive culture is well cultivated within the government enclave. MISA Botswana believes that a culture of secrecy is dominating our government institutions, while members of the public are tirelessly thirsty for service delivery and information dissemination. Although the Ministry of Infrastructure, Science and Technology scored well with a total score of 16 points, we could not recommend it as the most open public institution. The reason behind this decision is that like other institutions selected for the study this ministry also failed to respond to the request for information sent to them. It must be noted though that this is the only organisation, including those from previous years, which has included their budget on their website. It is critical for ministries to share such information with members of the public, due to the fact that the money spent is taxpayers’ money. Due to poor performance across the board, no Public Institution will receive the Golden Key award in 2014. RECOMMENDATIONS MISA Botswana received the same responses from Public Relations Officers (PROs) as in previous years, ie they wanted to know how the information would be used. MISA Botswana is of the opinion that government PROs should receive training to educate them on the importance of access to information. The issue of PROs having to sign non-disclosure forms should also be revisited, especially when it comes to employees who hold information of public interest. It is recommended that MISA Botswana should continue to seek more support from different stakeholders to join efforts to influence legislators to enact a Freedom of Information Act, which has become a necessity for this country.