To elevate Govt-media interaction to a new high | Daily News
Presidential Media Centre:

To elevate Govt-media interaction to a new high

COVID-19 vaccination programme ranks best in the world – Senior Advisor
President’s Senior Advisor Lalith Weeratunga addressing journalists at the PMC inauguration, flanked by Presidential Spokesman Kingsley Rathnayaka and President’s Media Division Director General Sudewa Hettiarachchi. 
President’s Senior Advisor Lalith Weeratunga addressing journalists at the PMC inauguration, flanked by Presidential Spokesman Kingsley Rathnayaka and President’s Media Division Director General Sudewa Hettiarachchi. 

A long-felt need for quick dissemination of accurate information on the progress of the implementation of the policies and programmes of the Government of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was fulfilled yesterday (29) with the inauguration of the Presidential Media Centre (PMC).

In line with the policy of prioritizing the most important issues concerning public interest, President’s Senior Advisor Lalith Weeratunga gave a comprehensive explanation about the COVID-19 vaccination process at the inaugural address. He said that according to an international survey, Sri Lanka is among the top countries in the daily average of administering vaccinations. ‘Our World in Data’ (https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations) listed Ecuador at the top until last week. However, with wide expansion of the vaccination programme earlier this week, Sri Lanka pushed Ecuador to the second place and emerged as the country with the highest daily number of Covid-19 vaccination doses administered per 100 people.

He pointed out that the Covid-19 pandemic is the most serious challenge at this juncture not only for our country but also for each and every country irrespective of their development status. The developed countries, which initially suffered severely from Coronavirus, have largely contained the risk of virus spread today since the majority of the population has been vaccinated. He pointed out that Sri Lanka could be well content over the vaccination programme considering that the developing countries could get only five percent of the vaccines while the affluent nations have grabbed more than 90 percent.

Sri Lanka made this achievement despite heavy odds. Although some vaccine-producing countries have easy access to the vaccine, there are many others who failed to secure sufficient stocks of vaccines for their people.

President Rajapaksa took special efforts in the recent past to bring down vaccines to Sri Lanka. He personally spoke to the Heads of State of some countries. He sent written requests to several heads of Government. Health officials held discussions with vaccine-producing countries. The Foreign Ministry held discussions with foreign Governments through the Ambassadors and High Commissioners. In addition, health officials coordinated with vaccine manufacturing companies. All these efforts were made because the Government wanted to vaccinate all the people in the country.

Inside the PMC
 

As a result of these efforts, the country is now receiving a large number of vaccines that we need on a monthly basis. We only use the vaccines approved by the World Health Organization (WHO). The Senior Advisor justified the decision to obtain a large stock of the Chinese-made Sinopharm vaccine and pointed out that the WHO has distributed 500 million Sinopharm vaccine doses to countries across the world.

Weeratunga, who is also the Chairman of the Presidential Task Force for National Deployment and Vaccination Plan for Covid-19, said as the supplies are regular, the rollout would be easier due to the country’s excellent health infrastructure.

President’s Spokesman Kingsley Rathnayaka said that Sri Lanka received the first consignment of 500,000 doses of the Astra-Zeneca vaccine (Covishield, made by the Serum Institute of India) as a gift from India, and China has gifted 2.7 million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine. Another four million doses of the Sinopharm vaccine will be purchased from the Chinese manufacturer in the first week of August. At present, the total Sinopharm doses received by Sri Lanka stands at 10.7 million. The corresponding number for Covishield/Astra Zeneca is 1.264 million. Furthermore, the Sputnik vaccine (180,000 doses), Moderna (1,500,000) and Pfizer (202,200) have been received.

The Senior Advisor announced that Sri Lanka would get 725,000 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine tomorrow (July 31). Japan has agreed to provide this under the COVAX facility after a direct request was made by President Rajapaksa to Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.

By end of September, it is planned to vaccinate nearly eight million people, thus covering two thirds of the initial target of 12 million. Subsequently the age group below 30 also would be covered and by the end of this year, 15 million persons would be vaccinated. At present, the vaccination drive is being carried out successfully in all nine provinces.

Presidential Media Centre

The PMC got off to a good start by giving to the media accurate data with regard to the Covid-19 pandemic and the vaccination drive. Addressing journalists, President’s Media Division Director General Sudewa Hettiarachchi sought the fullest cooperation of the media to convey accurate information about the Government’s policies to the people. “This is a coordinated effort and for its success we urge you to extend your cooperation,” he said.

Scribes take down notes at the first press briefing held at the PMC.
 

President’s Spokesman Kingsley Rathnayaka pointed out that the establishment of the PMC is a positive step towards strengthening the public’s right to know the Government’s plans and it would strengthen accountability and transparency on the part of the Government, especially the President. Most importantly, this would prevent the President’s words from being communicated erroneously, as there are no middlemen involved.

“Through the Centre we can provide more information to the people about a particular subject, especially about the President in this instance and the basic information about the major development projects he initiates as the people often do not receive basic information because there are certain limitations,” Rathnayaka said. For example, there can be limitations of the media and the fact that the President is not able to go often amongst the people and talk to them. “Due to these various limitations, we identified that there is a lack of a flow of information from the President’s side to the people. What happens when there is either no information or lack of information is that false or distorted information may appear and be shared. When a person knows there will be no answer or response he can disseminate anything he wants as information.”

Especially on social media platforms, due to the lack of rich conversation and discussion, it has become a platform to spread lies in society, in other words, disseminate information that is ‘planted truths’. A person today can easily manufacture a false story and spread it through various social media pages and accounts through organized groups who benefit financially or in other ways by doing this. Due to these acts, the genuine reader, listener or viewer of the media does not get the correct and true information.

Rathnayaka said the new President’s Media Centre has been established to inform people about the President, the various development projects, results of important international meetings and discussions as well as the real situation in the country. Journalists will be invited to the centre, they will be able to ask questions and assist in disseminating and explaining correct information to the people. “This is why I said it will be a good way to also counter misinformation.”

It is a fact that there had been myths and misinformation relating to the Covid-19 vaccination in a section of the media. At one juncture concerns spread that Sri Lanka will not get the necessary stocks, then there were concerns on how the vaccines received in small batches were distributed and how the President was making these decisions, Rathnayaka said.

To elaborate, the President held a meeting with the technical committee about the Covid-19 Delta variant. There it was decided that the vaccines found to be effective against this variant will be administered in the Puttalam and Mannar coastal areas as it was found that there was more possibility of the Delta variant entering the country through the sea routes from India to Sri Lanka. Although some accused the Government of providing vaccines to the affluent people in Colombo, in reality the President directed these vaccines be given to people of the areas mentioned above to stop the Delta variant from entering the country. But the President never gets the opportunity to address these concerns and queries of various persons on either social media or in small press briefings, Rathnayaka said.

But these decisions are taken after consulting experts. At times even these experts are not able to respond to these queries. So, at times, certain people use this politically to spread misinformation and only that claim is then disseminated among the people.

Rathnayaka assured that if anyone questions or claims, at the PMC, that the President is not taking decisions according to expert advice or scientific methods, those would be addressed and the required information would be provided.

The PMC is not a short-term project and no matter which Government comes into power, its work must be carried out for the benefit of the people.


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