Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

It has now been 12 weeks since the Gov­ern­ment last held a post-Cab­i­net news brief­ing, with the most re­cent ses­sion tak­ing place on May 7, leav­ing near­ly three months with­out min­is­ters fac­ing ques­tions from jour­nal­ists on de­ci­sions tak­en at Cab­i­net ses­sions.

The ab­sence of the week­ly brief­in­gs has co­in­cid­ed with a pe­ri­od marked by sev­er­al sig­nif­i­cant na­tion­al is­sues on which the pub­lic has sought an­swers, in­clud­ing con­cerns sur­round­ing pub­lic pro­cure­ment, the ex­ten­sion of the State of Emer­gency, the con­tro­ver­sial de­vel­op­ment of da­ta cen­tres, short­ages of pass­port book­lets, geopo­lit­i­cal de­vel­op­ments and wider en­er­gy and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ments.

The gap has al­so un­fold­ed against a broad­er shift in the Gov­ern­ment’s en­gage­ment with the me­dia. In­di­vid­ual min­is­ters have large­ly stopped hold­ing for­mal me­dia brief­in­gs, main­stream me­dia or­gan­i­sa­tions have not been in­vit­ed to some State events, and Par­lia­ment is cur­rent­ly in re­cess, re­duc­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for jour­nal­ists to di­rect­ly ques­tion Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters.

Asked whether the Gov­ern­ment had aban­doned the week­ly post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ences yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Nicholas Mor­ris in­sist­ed they re­main part of the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s com­mu­ni­ca­tions strat­e­gy but ar­gued that ac­count­abil­i­ty can­not be mea­sured by a sin­gle week­ly event.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia, Mor­ris re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that the Gov­ern­ment had be­come less ac­ces­si­ble, main­tain­ing that min­is­ters com­mu­ni­cate con­tin­u­ous­ly through their dai­ly work, rather than re­ly­ing on a week­ly me­dia con­fer­ence.

He said post-Cab­i­net brief­in­gs “will con­tin­ue to be one of our tools to present in­for­ma­tion to the pub­lic,” but ar­gued the Gov­ern­ment had adopt­ed a mod­el of dai­ly en­gage­ment through min­is­te­r­i­al ac­tiv­i­ties, press re­leas­es, com­ments to the me­dia and pub­lic events.

“Our ac­count­abil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy and avail­abil­i­ty to high­light our dai­ly per­for­mance is quite clear, giv­en the state­ments and work in the me­dia,” Mor­ris said.

He main­tained that min­is­ters re­main avail­able through var­i­ous en­gage­ments and in­sist­ed Gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy, achieve­ments and di­rec­tives are com­mu­ni­cat­ed on a dai­ly ba­sis.

Mor­ris al­so ar­gued that judg­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s per­for­mance based on whether it holds a week­ly post-Cab­i­net brief­ing was mis­placed.

“This Gov­ern­ment, un­like the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion, will not mea­sure its per­for­mance, its work and its achieve­ments by one press con­fer­ence,” he said.

“Our achieve­ments, com­mit­ment and de­liv­ery for the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go hap­pens every sin­gle day.”

He added that the Gov­ern­ment is work­ing “sev­en days in, sev­en days out” to im­prove pub­lic safe­ty, se­cu­ri­ty, eco­nom­ic sta­bil­i­ty and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, say­ing those ef­forts demon­strate ac­count­abil­i­ty more ef­fec­tive­ly than a sin­gle sched­uled me­dia event.

Ram­samooj: Ap­proach sug­gests in­se­cu­ri­ty

How­ev­er, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Derek Ram­samooj ques­tioned the Gov­ern­ment’s evolv­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion strat­e­gy, ar­gu­ing that the move away from reg­u­lar post-Cab­i­net ques­tion­ing sends the wrong mes­sage about trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty to the pub­lic.

He said the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s pre­ferred method of com­mu­ni­cat­ing through state­ments, so­cial me­dia posts and one-way mes­sag­ing “sug­gests a lev­el of po­lit­i­cal, pro­fes­sion­al and pub­lic in­se­cu­ri­ty.”

Ac­cord­ing to Ram­samooj, while gov­ern­ments are not legal­ly re­quired to hold post-Cab­i­net me­dia con­fer­ences, de­mo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nance de­pends on lead­ers mak­ing them­selves avail­able for rig­or­ous pub­lic ques­tion­ing and scruti­ny.

“The pop­u­la­tion de­serves a rig­or­ous ques­tion and an­swer dis­cus­sion by all stake­hold­ers, start­ing with the me­dia, ask­ing the un­com­fort­able ques­tions,” he said.

Ram­samooj said in­ter­na­tion­al best prac­tice has shift­ed, cit­ing US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s com­mu­ni­ca­tion style as an ex­am­ple of how reg­u­lar en­gage­ment with the me­dia has shaped pub­lic ex­pec­ta­tions that po­lit­i­cal lead­ers should rou­tine­ly an­swer ques­tions about their gov­er­nance de­ci­sions.

He ar­gued that mod­ern pub­lic ex­pec­ta­tions have shift­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly, with cit­i­zens in­creas­ing­ly ex­pect­ing lead­ers to ex­plain and de­fend gov­ern­ment de­ci­sions in re­al time, through di­rect en­gage­ment with jour­nal­ists.

He not­ed that while gov­ern­ments of­ten com­mu­ni­cate through me­dia re­leas­es, pre­pared state­ments and so­cial me­dia con­tent, those meth­ods de­ny the pub­lic an op­por­tu­ni­ty to seek clar­i­fi­ca­tion or chal­lenge of­fi­cial nar­ra­tives di­rect­ly. He said ef­fec­tive po­lit­i­cal com­mu­ni­ca­tion re­quires two-way en­gage­ment rather than one-way dis­sem­i­na­tion of in­for­ma­tion.

“You must have some lev­el of open ques­tion­ing, so as to ei­ther build the con­fi­dence or sug­gest ar­eas of im­prove­ment that is need­ed.”

He said gov­ern­ments should view post-cab­i­net brief­in­gs as an es­sen­tial ac­count­abil­i­ty mech­a­nism rather than an op­tion­al com­mu­ni­ca­tions ex­er­cise.

Asked whether months should pass with­out min­is­ters hold­ing such brief­in­gs de­spite im­por­tant Cab­i­net de­ci­sions con­tin­u­ing to be made, Ram­samooj replied that reg­u­lar me­dia con­fer­ences should ef­fec­tive­ly be­come stan­dard prac­tice.

“It should be a re­quire­ment that a me­dia or pub­lic Cab­i­net brief­ing ses­sion be held at the end of every such meet­ing,” he said.

He ar­gued that do­ing so would im­prove pub­lic con­fi­dence in Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion-mak­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing pe­ri­ods in­volv­ing sig­nif­i­cant na­tion­al is­sues.

“That method of ef­fec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion will im­prove the trust and the trans­paren­cy that the elec­torate must have with the Gov­ern­ment,” he said.

He al­so said the is­sue has be­come even more press­ing, giv­en the coun­try’s on­go­ing State of Emer­gency, eco­nom­ic chal­lenges and broad­er so­cial is­sues, all of which re­quire greater pub­lic ex­pla­na­tion rather than less.

“We need to have not au­thor­i­tar­i­an com­mu­ni­ca­tion, but two-way com­mu­ni­ca­tion,” Ram­samooj said.

“That is what is ur­gent­ly need­ed.”

For­mer min­is­ter rais­es ac­count­abil­i­ty con­cerns

For­mer com­mu­ni­ca­tions min­is­ter Symon de No­bri­ga al­so crit­i­cised the ab­sence of post-Cab­i­net brief­in­gs, de­scrib­ing what he called the “com­plete dis­ap­pear­ance of gov­ern­ment ac­count­abil­i­ty” as a grow­ing na­tion­al con­cern.

He not­ed that the Prime Min­is­ter has not per­son­al­ly at­tend­ed a post-Cab­i­net news con­fer­ence for more than a year and said Cab­i­net min­is­ters them­selves have not held one col­lec­tive­ly in more than three months.

De No­bri­ga ar­gued that pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tions un­der for­mer prime min­is­ters Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Stu­art Young held such brief­in­gs far more reg­u­lar­ly, al­low­ing jour­nal­ists to ques­tion min­is­ters di­rect­ly about gov­ern­ment de­ci­sions.

He ac­cused the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion of avoid­ing fo­rums where min­is­ters could be chal­lenged or re­quired to ex­plain con­tro­ver­sial de­ci­sions be­yond pre­pared talk­ing points.

In­stead, he said, Gov­ern­ment com­mu­ni­ca­tion has be­come dom­i­nat­ed by so­cial me­dia videos, pol­ished me­dia re­leas­es and care­ful­ly man­aged mes­sag­ing.

“That’s not ac­count­abil­i­ty by the Gov­ern­ment,” he said.

De No­bri­ga warned that re­duc­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for di­rect ques­tion­ing weak­ens de­mo­c­ra­t­ic ac­count­abil­i­ty, re­gard­less of po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion.

“This is about gov­er­nance. This is about a gov­ern­ment speak­ing to its pop­u­la­tion... to ex­plain de­ci­sions that have been tak­en,” he said.

He ar­gued that pub­lic con­cern is height­ened at a time when cit­i­zens are al­ready de­bat­ing is­sues re­lat­ing to de­mo­c­ra­t­ic rights and Gov­ern­ment de­ci­sion-mak­ing.

“I think that is some­thing that should con­cern us all,” he said.

MATT calls for un­script­ed ques­tion­ing

The Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (MATT) has al­so ex­pressed con­cern over the pro­longed ab­sence of me­dia con­fer­ences, say­ing jour­nal­ists have been un­able to ques­tion Cab­i­net min­is­ters in an un­script­ed set­ting for ap­prox­i­mate­ly three months.

In a state­ment, the as­so­ci­a­tion said ques­tion­ing min­is­ters at press con­fer­ences re­mains a vi­tal com­po­nent of any func­tion­ing democ­ra­cy.

“It is vi­tal in any democ­ra­cy for jour­nal­ists to ques­tion gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, in­clud­ing the Prime Min­is­ter, on the con­duct of their du­ties in an un­script­ed en­vi­ron­ment such as a press con­fer­ence,” MATT said.

The or­gan­i­sa­tion re­vealed that it had writ­ten to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­quest­ing a meet­ing to dis­cuss the mat­ter and oth­er me­dia-re­lat­ed con­cerns.

Ac­cord­ing to MATT, the Prime Min­is­ter agreed to the meet­ing and re­quest­ed an agen­da, which was sub­se­quent­ly pro­vid­ed.

How­ev­er, the meet­ing was lat­er post­poned fol­low­ing a be­reave­ment in Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s fam­i­ly that re­quired her to trav­el to New York.

MATT said it has since con­tact­ed the Prime Min­is­ter to resched­ule the meet­ing and is await­ing a re­sponse.