Traditional leaders in Botswana have urged government to utilise mobile technology to announce public meetings.

The call from Botswana’s House of Chiefs -- an assembly of traditional leaders, ex-officio and elected members who give advice to parliament on matters of a customary nature -- comes after Chief Maruje Thabo Masunga of the country’s north east region billed a motion asking government to work in partnership with mobile operators to disseminate information to communities.

Masunga’s motion requested government to consider collaboration with Botswana’s three mobile network operators -- Orange, Mascom and beMobile -- to set up Short Message Service (SMS) notifications to announce Kgotla meetings (public meetings) usually held at the customary courts.

Citing Botswana as one of the countries with high mobile penetration rates, Masunga said SMS notifications of these meetings could help to reduce low public turnouts to community meetings.

Data from the country’s communications watchdog says that Botswana’s cellphone subscriptions reached 3.08 million at the end of last year. Botswana has a population of just over 2 million, according to World Bank figures from 2011.

Chief Masunga said traditional methods of sending messengers and announcing through public addressing systems are no longer efficiently reaching the masses.

“Even announcing around the village, the message does not reach people as expected. Also some would be asleep, tired from work,” said Masunga highlighting that some government departments have adopted the trend of disseminating information through SMS.

He further said SMS messages are used globally for disaster management.

“It could also help government to alert people when there are disasters, such as floods, to stay away from such areas.”

Sharing his sentiment Chief Kgosi Kgomotso Boiditswe of Serowe Region said it could help alert the youth about the meetings on time.

“It causes shame and embarrassment on us when attendance is poor when we have visitors,” said Boiditswe.

Adding her voice to the issue, Kgosi Mosadi Seboko also supported the motion, saying the youth like and use cellular phones a lot and, maybe, this is the time they can be called to the meetings.