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Drugs Authority says officials misleading minister
View(s):The sudden postponement of the National Medicinal Regulatory Authority’s first media conference scheduled for last Thursday has caused another major controversy, with an NMRA spokesman saying some officials are giving erroneous information to the Health Minister.
He said the intention of these officials was obviously to create a rift between Health Minister Rajitha Senaratne and the NMRA and also to prevent the NMRA from giving the correct information to the media.
He expressed regret that these officials with hidden agendas had succeeded in their operation.
The NMRA spokesman said the Authority had planned to hold the media conference on Thursday May 6. The NMRA sent invitations to the print and electronic media. The aim of the media conference was to clarify wrong media reports relating to the NMRA, reports which the NMRA believed were planted by officials with vested interests.
He said that over the past few months there had been many inaccurate reports in certain media regarding the NMRA. At the news conference, the NMRA was planning to tell the media and the people about what it had done and was planning to do during this year in the mission to provide quality drugs to the people at affordable prices.
The decision to hold the media conference was taken at an NMRA board meeting on May 2. The Minister himself had asked the NMRA to speak to the media and correct some erroneous reports about drug shortages due to delays by the NMRA in approving the imports.
The spokesman said that on Wednesday afternoon, a henchman had called the minister who was in Singapore and told him that the NMRA was planning to have a media conference to criticise the minister.
He said the NMRA had no such intention but only wanted to explain the work it was doing. He said the minister had apparently become anxious or angry and immediately called Health Ministry Secretary Anura Jayawickrama and told him to stop the media conference. The Secretary then called the Chairman of the NMRA and strongly requested him to postpone the event. He issued a letter to the Chairman as well, but there he did not ask to cancel or postpone it, but mentioned that the NMRA should follow the Establishment Code, the spokesman said.
However, Mr Jayawickrema told the Sunday Times he did not tell the NMRA to cancel the news conference, but told it to wait until the minister returned. “There is an ongoing conflict between the NMRA and the Health Ministry officials. I told the NMRA that once the minister returned it could have a discussion with the minister to clear the issues and thereafter hold the media conference,” he said. ‘”I don’t have any issues with the NMRA.”