If I were

Seodi White

 

Chief director in the Public Service Reforms Management Unit in the Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC), I would explain why journalists were barred from covering the Sectoral Conference on the Implementation of the Reforms.

Coming barely a day after I refused to grant The Nation an interview on the pretext that the newspaper is hell-bent to have me fired, the assumption would be that I was behind the decision to bar the journalists unless I come out in the open to justify the decision.

If I were endowed with White’s experience in law and civil society,   I would appreciate that in a democratic society activism, the press has constitutional freedom to cover public events and this was not a meeting over banki nkhonde issue or a private wedding committee.

If I were in charge of the reforms, I would realise that expelling journalists was not only unfair and a mark of secrecy, but also contrary to government’s claims of promoting transparency and accountability in the public service drive.

If I were in White’s reforms, I would make an effort to explain my fears instead of embarrassing journalists in public.

But I am not Seodi White, am I?

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