By Cathy Chigwada
New Minister of Information and Communications Technology Henry Mussa summoned government Public Relations Officers on Wednesday and asked them why they are not publicising government successful projects in their respective institutions.
Mussa said government under the leadership of President Peter Mutharika has done a lot of development projects but they are not publicised.
“Why are you not telling the success story of government?” quizzed Mussa at a meeting held at the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology headquarters in Lilongwe.
He was flanked by the Ministry’s Principal Secretary Erica Maganga, Director of Information Gedion Munthali, Technical Advisor Frederick Ndala and Deputy of Information Deogratias Mmana.
“Expectations are very high. We only have five months to elections. Why are we failing to tell our success story? Are you controlled, gagged? Go to the mountains and anthills and spread the good news,” said Mussa.
He gave the team an opportunity to express their concerns.
Several spokekspersons that spoke said the challenge they have is the lack of funds and support from their bosses.
“There is no budget allocation for the Public Relations office. We are not part of management and so we do not know what is happening within our institutions,” said one PRO whose sentiments were also echoed by several others.
Speaking in an interview on behalf of the team, Lewis Msasa, Public Relations Manager for Teveta, thanked Mussa for calling for the meeting which he said gave an opportunity to them to speak out their concerns.
“We have the capacity to tell the Government success story but we need support from our authorities,” said Msasa.
In closing, the Minister assured the spokespersons of some interventions to ensure that government PROs function as expected.