Messing With The Press

THERE is a disturbing new trend in town. Journalists, already registered and accredited by the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, are forced to get additional licensing for access to almost every event.

It’s one communication that Namibian journalists don’t want to get of late: a notice for accreditation. But that’s happening increasingly - almost on a fortnightly basis.
What those who do it don’t know is that it is illegal to demand accreditation to conferences. There is no law permitting the authorities to demand that journalists have those unnecessary cards which pile up on their desks every week.
Not only are the cards unnecessary because the journalists are already accredited with the ICT ministry, but also because it is such a hassle to get them.
Government argues that the registration and accreditation of journalists is undertaken to ‘empower’ them. It means they can access certain places such as State House with reasonable ease.
However, it is of no help when they have to re-do the process with the visit of every Head of State, Prime Minister, Minister or other foreign dignitary as well as almost every other local conference where they receive ham-handed treatment by organisers or those employed to facilitate the process.
Shouldn’t we embrace media coverage? If so, don’t curb it by making it difficult for journalists to have access to information.
In any case, the next morning, all those who made it such a mission for journalists to cover their events, still buy newspapers on their way to the offices to read about themselves or sit patiently in front of television each evening hoping to see coverage of these functions. They seek fame like bees seek honey but will not grant those who will afford them such a chance easy access to information.
I tend to think that such people have political agendas that appear to be media headline driven while they are hyper security-conscious. For what reasons, I don’t know, because the closest a journalist has got to attacking a leader in the recent past was by throwing a shoe at George W Bush!
In most cases the accreditation process is so disorganised that the event starts or is over before the accreditation is finalised.
This because of faulty machinery, bad planning and unnecessarily tight security contributing to reporters struggling to secure their accreditation for admittance to such venues.
Personally, I have witnessed instances where several accreditation forms were submitted by people who were not even journalists! We call them spies or spooks.
I have no grudges if journalists are asked to get accreditation for a visiting Head of State or other Very Important Person (VIP) as our Government, like others the world over, is probably worried about terrorists or foreign intelligence operatives infiltrating such venues.
But there have been cases where even intelligence personnel circumvent security checks by supplying details of journalists or pretended to be working for certain institutions such as The Namibian and got away with the cards.
So why not use the already existing media cards? These are checked over time by the Ministry of Information and since we are a small population with an equally small group of scribes, almost everyone knowing the other. In any case, even the intelligence already have the details of most (controversial) journalists!
Judging from the amount of accreditation going on in the country, I have started wondering whether someone is not getting a kickback for giving out the job to a certain company.. Or who is making money from printing the cards which no one even looks at once conferences start?
The media, like any other profession, should abide by the laws of this country but we have the right to defend our turf when something illegal is imposed upon us and licensing is one of them.
As it is now, the accreditation process is just time-consuming, negatively affects production and deadlines and is just an outright waste of public funds.
Let's do away with it.

Leave National Security Out Of It

‘TWO wrongs don’t make a right’, my colleague for the past 18-plus years, Jean Sutherland, always reminds us. It is wrong for Police Inspector General Sebastian Ndeitunga to declare the hidden cameras at the seal colony ‘a national threat’.

Ndeitunga drove almost 400 kilometres to the coast last week to hold a media briefing where he declared that the planting of cameras to film the culling of seals “was a threat to the sovereignty of the country”.
“If they managed to hide the cameras there, what stops them from putting a camera in a military base, at State House or near a Police station?” he was quoted as saying.
Come on General! You should and do know better than that.
As you rightly admitted the place was unguarded at night and anyone could go in to set up cameras. I don’t believe that part needed a sophisticated operation!
Now the Police are on alert and will guard the place at night!
There are more serious criminal activities going on. Undercover Police can, for instance, be deployed in areas known for attacks on citizens instead of them being fruitlessly deployed to freeze next to the sea at night, waiting for people who now know they should not enter that area.
By the way, Police and intelligence were tipped off about the Caprivi attack by newspaper reports, yet did not act quickly enough. And that was a national threat.
Ndeitunga missed the point big time. His first question should have been why people had set up the cameras in the first place.
His reaction should preferably have been to address the issue of access to the place and consequent free filming of the culling.
What is there to hide? Why do we not open up the place? Particularly since we justify the cull.
If the culling is done the right way and Namibia is the transparent country we are led to believe, it is the journalists and those with interest in the matter that you need to convert first.
The more we keep the curious people away, the more we create inquisitiveness and suspicion and drive them to install hidden cameras.
As it is now, a simple issue like seal culling is attracting the world’s attention. We have other important issues which could also attract such high level of interest.
Yup, that’s what it is. You are taking a country with truckloads of issues, finding the one it doesn’t have, and turning it into an issue.
Not that I agree with the campaigns of those who oppose seal culling in Namibia.
I have come across many activists who devote zillions of hours on causes such as animal rights protection and they do it in a manner which basically forces respect from governments.
But instead of dealing with the concerns of those who oppose the culling and educating others on the process followed to kill the seals, Ndeitunga has taken the route of a trick we have come to know from politicians because it’s easier to talk about national sovereignty than it is to deal with the mundane subjects of that same issue: transparency, access to information, openness and honesty.
Yes, the Constitution commits the Government to the “... maintenance of ecosystems, essential ecological processes and biological diversity of Namibia and utilisation of living natural resources on a sustainable basis for the benefit of all Namibians, both present and future ...”
The Ministry of Fisheries thus claims culling of the seals falls within the ambit of sustainable utilisation.
Others perhaps feel that culling is a source of revenue through the sale of the seal penises to countries in the Far East. The penises are dried, shaved, sprinkled with herbs and sold as aphrodisiacs. Apparently they fetch as much as N$7 000 a pound but there are questions over whether Government actually benefits from the sales.
Be that it may be, regarding the seal cull filming as a threat to the country’s safety is going overboard.
The Government or the Ministry of Fisheries have forced those who planted the cameras to the extreme.
In the past The Namibian applied for permission to go into the area but was denied access and told that no filming would be permitted during the harvesting of seals.
“If the Government decides for the coverage by the media, such a project will be awarded to State media institutions of which terms and conditions will be drafted and agreed upon in writing,” was the response of then Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Fisheries, Frans Tsheehama.
So far the Government cannot quote any clause of the Marine Resources Act of 2000 governing media coverage of marine areas to justify the ban from the area.
It is this type of attitude which force others to resort to illegal activities such as filming with hidden cameras. But Ndeitunga’s response in calling it a national threat was equally wrong.
Two wrongs do not make a right!

Come On, Interceptors, You Can Do Much Better!

I HAVE become a threat to the country’s democracy, or so it seems.

My mail is tapped (illegally, I must say) but the worst is that they forget to deliver the SMS or e-mail messages after they are intercepted, or deliver them only three to five days later.
I knew that the radical Communication Act contained the good, the bad and the very ugly.
I was one of those who opposed the section on interception vehemently, but Information Minister Joel Kaapanda then dismissed our worries and claimed that the law would not bring fundamental changes to information-sharing.
He described our concerns about interception as distortion of facts and said reports by The Namibian on that section of the Act were sensational reporting aimed at misleading the public.
According to him the Act has a lot of “good things and opportunities” and it is “popular in the eyes of many people”.
“I want to point out that the requirement for a warrant to conduct interception is an absolute necessity based on the law that gives the right to intercept,” he said in an interview with Swapo’s mouthpiece, Namibia Today.
Only those involved in criminal activities needed to feel threatened, as that part of the Act would be used to monitor the activities of criminals, he said.
According to the Act, the National Intelligence Service must get a warrant from a High Court judge before interception takes place. They must have material evidence about a suspect’s criminal activities and such behaviour must be deemed as a threat to the country’s security before they approach the judge, the Act states.
My concern at that stage was the lack of detail on such warrants.
But Kaapanda said we should not “fear constant monitoring”.
We left it there and the Bill became an Act very quickly as it sailed smoothly through both the National Assembly and the National Council.
My experience now justifies my fears back then.
Constant monitoring of telephone calls and delays of days in the delivery of SMS messages and e-mail have plagued not only my work but also the communications of some people I know in my craft as well as political contacts.
Many who know their e-mail and text messages are being intercepted regard our ‘intelligence’ as a joke.
I remember making a call home one evening. My wife answered and as soon as I realised that someone was listening to our conversation I told her in Damara/Nama that she should say “bye” in English but not switch off. Both of us said “bye” but continued holding on only to hear the listener disconnect first. We had a good laugh!
But of late, it is not just about listening in on conversations.
When SMS and e-mail messages are intercepted, read, and not passed on promptly, I worry about the lack of professionalism in the intelligence service.
As they do some things illegally, like not getting the warrants, you would expect that they would act more speedily.
Some of us who have become an alleged threat to the country’s security do things that are time-bound, such as producing a newspaper on time for printing.
Never mind our rights to privacy! We also have deadlines and if the State security agents keep on delaying our mail as they do regularly, our readers, like President Hifikepunye Pohamba who buys the paper first thing in the morning, will not be happy about getting it late.
That is why it is unacceptable when some of the secret agents in intelligence now regularly forget to pass on the intercepted mail. It sucks, really!
They can do much better.

People have the right to know

THIS week The Namibian carried at least two stories which showed how ignorant some people are about access to information and their blatant disrespect to other people's right to information.
This happened in the same week we celebrated World Press Freedom Day (Monday) under the theme 'Access to Information: the Right to Know'.
In the first instance a managing director of a bank and a chief executive officer of a security company were approached to comment on a serious strike threat by employees who were unhappy with wage-related issues.
The MD of the bank said he was on holiday and would respond later while the CEO refused to respond because it was a Sunday. He even threatened to report the journalist to whoever he had in mind because his Sunday had been disturbed!
The CEO refuses to 'work' on Sunday by answering a call but his employees can work to make money for his company!
In the second article a Councillor - an elected representative of the people - from Okahandja, who chairs the management committee which suspended the town's CEO, said she 'does not speak to the media'.
The bank MD and the security company CEO were contacted because a strike of their employees would have a potentially crippling effect not only on their companies but also affect others such as people who bank there and clients whose buildings are guarded by the security guards.
In all those cases people entrusted with information which could fend off simmering tensions have opted to refuse or withhold vital information and thus prevented the reporter to share with employees, clients or voters - in the case of the councillor.
One of the cornerstones of any healthy democracy is a robust press, a society which demands its rights as well as a government which creates a conducive legal environment.
In Namibia an elected councillor refuses to speak to the media partly because of the absence of an access to information law.
A couple of years back in India a group of villagers from Rajasthan used the access to information law to expose a scam in which some the private sector, called ration-dealers, were ripping them off.
The government ran a massive food subsidy scheme as a social security measure to promote the right to food for the villagers and the ration-dealers were tasked to distribute the food to those who presented themselves with a ration-card.
In turn, the dealer would then claim payment from the government for the food he had distributed to the community.
Some dealers than started claiming that they ran out of subsidy stock and sold from their own to the people, while, in the meantime, recording the transactions as distributions related to the food subsidy scheme.
They claimed money from the government and would thus get paid twice, by both the customer and by the government!
The community used the information law to force government to open up documents related to the claims of the ration-dealers and massive discrepancies were discovered.
It means they they used the law to protect their socio-economic rights and to fight corruption.
It is but one example how the law can be used to benefit the masses.
In Namibia, the absence of such a law has meant that the President can continue to ignore calls to publish reports of commissions of inquiry which have been collecting dust for many years; Police can refuse to have regular media briefings on crime; the Ministry of Fisheries can refuse permission to those who want to enter and photograph the seal culling; or institutions such as NamPower can increase the price of electricity as they wish.
An access to information law empowers a citizen to demand that NamPower, for instance, must open its books to the public and show how negatively their operations will be affected if they do not increase their prices. They must prove their case to consumers before pushing up prices!
As it is now, many institutions can unilaterally change the service conditions and get away with 'murder' because the absence of the law is seen to only affect the media who want access to State secrets.
We need to realise that it not secrecy, but rather transparency and access to information that protect the national interest.
My call is for the Government to go beyond rhetorical commitments to access to information by taking visible and tangible steps to come up with the long-awaited access to information legislation.