BOTSWANA MALAWI SUMMARY in NUMBERS Institution Website 1. Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority (BOCRA) 16 Request for information 18 Total score 34 2. Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA) 13 3 16 3. Companies and Intellectual Property Authority (CIPA) 14 18 32 4. Ministry of Health and Wellness (MOHW) 10 10 20 5. Ministry of Nationality, Immigration and Gender Affairs (MNIG) 8 16 24 6. University of Botswana (UB) 8 4 12 7. Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sports and Culture Development (MYESC) 8 3 11 8. Office of the Ombudsman (OMB) 9 3 12 RESEARCH CONCLUSIONS Public relations have become part of the problem in several ways: Botswana is a very secretive country—out of eight organisations surveyed, only four responded to the information requests. • Release of information by public organs is regarded as a favour to the public. Despite the recognition of the right to information by Section 12 of the Constitution and other public policy pronouncements, government bodies view any unsolicited request for information with suspicion. Due in part to the absence of implementation or enactment ofthe necessary laws, such as an access to information law, public officers use their discretion to decide whether or not to release information. This attitude is spread across public offices and made worse by the Public Service Act, which regards the unauthorised release of public information by public servants as gross misconduct. This is an indication that the absence of access to information legislation does not only obstruct information seekers but the custodians of information as well—the latter are not protected as they do not have any legal parameters to work within. In one case, the officer had to demand a cover letter to be added to the request for information, despite the fact that the identity of the requester and a reason for the request were included in the information request. The officer insisted that the cover letter must be hand-delivered. Although there is a Government Communications Department based in the Office of the President, as well as an array of public relation officers, including ministers’ private secretaries, getting information still remains difficult due to bureaucracy and a lack of urgency. These positions responsible for managing public information have become the extension of officialdom and therefore the opposite of what they were expected to be. While compiling this research, it was evident that in some cases seeking information directly from Directors was more efficient than going through the public relations offices. Most public relations officers are subjected to the same undignified and tedious process of begging for information from relevant officials, which renders them ineffective in carrying out their official duties. Government employees still believe they own public information and are doing the public a favour in releasing such information. • • • They are a buffer zone between information seekers and custodians. Instead of the public having direct access to the custodians of the information, they are left in the mercy of the PR officials. The survey identified this trend in all the selected organisations. The other issue with public relationsoffices is their helplessness when the custodians of information are not cooperative. This was evident in many cases with one officer even having to blind copy the researcher into her interaction with her colleagues. The first contact with officials was promising but enthusiasm and responses quickly dwindled out when the officers could not get the information from their colleagues. Except for state companies (parastatals), the first contact officers (public relations officers) were junior officers and therefore only received the request on behalf of their seniors, who would be at external workshops. The disempowered juniors could only receive the information and in some cases compile a response, but still had to await their seniors to release the information. Most of these responses never saw the light of day. It is also revealing that two of the three respondents were from parastatals while other government ministries did not respond at all. THE MOST SECRETIVE PUBLIC INSTITUTION IN BOTSWANA The Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sports and Culture Development, like other government ministries, has several public relations officials engaged to ease access to information. The officer’s refusal to forward the questionnaire to the relevant offices, and insisting that the researcher provide a cover letter displayed a blend of paranoia and ignorance. The Ministry deals with a very sensitive segment of society—the youth, and therefore has to demonstrate urgency and modernity when dealing with information. 21