Khan takes charge of DPI/GINA
Prime Minister, Moses Nagamootoo meeting with staff of the Government Information Agency (GINA)
Prime Minister, Moses Nagamootoo meeting with staff of the Government Information Agency (GINA)

…PM seeks change of ‘GINA brand’

DIRECTOR of Public Information, Imran Khan is now head of the Government Information Agency (GINA) with the former director, Beverly Alert being seconded to the National Communications Network as its Public Information Coordinator.

The full merger of the DPI and GINA will take effect from January 2018, at which time the official name of the unit will be Department of Public Information. Prime Minister and First Vice-President, Moses Nagamootoo, explained that since 2015, some work has been done towards changing the content of information produced by the agency. “While we are doing better, we have not done enough; we have been able to get into news outlets more than we had done in the past, but at the same time we have not been able to significantly change the brand. The GINA brand, it was a party propaganda instrument, the politicisation from a party’s point of view of the public information that we would like to guard against,” the Prime Minister pointed out.

As of January 1, 2018, the merged agencies will generally be referred to as the Department of Public Information (DPI). Beverley Alert, who served as Director of GINA since June 2015 has been seconded as Public Information Co-ordinator to the National Communications Network (NCN). Imran Khan will assume the position of Managing Director of the new DPI. The Prime Minister met with staff of GINA and DPI on Wednesday and enlightened them of the expectations to be observed as the staff enters into the new name and management. He added that GINA’s work has changed significantly and expects this merger to enhance what has already begun.

“It is for the first time that GINA has assumed a role of covering what the opposition does in the parliament, and what the judiciary is doing, and what the executive is doing, as well as what parliament is doing, (what) the speaker of parliament is doing at the level of the legislature, so that we have the defined functions for public information that delimit the temptation of even partisan slant to public information,” the Prime Minister highlighted.

The Prime Minister remarked that all information agencies of the government have a key responsibility of ensuring factual evidence-based information is disseminated. He added that with a highly professional and trained public relations arm of the government, timely and accurate information will be filtered through various mediums for public consumption.

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