All ministries must fine-tune their strategic communications - Annuar

PUTRAJAYA: The Cabinet has decided that all ministries must fine-tune their own strategic communications to ensure that information on every strategic decision made by the government is delivered to the people accurately and promptly, Minister of Communications and Multimedia Tan Sri Annuar Musa announced.

He said the ministries must also intensify their information delivery efforts to enable the people to understand the importance and rationale for every action taken by the government.

"The Cabinet wants the ministries to ensure that the delivery of information to the people is improved and further enhanced as we know that the people out there want more information.

"Some of the government's strategic decisions also need to be explained well to the people...we want to provide them with a greater understanding of what's going on and the rationale for the government's actions," he told reporters after attending MenKOMM's strategic communication engagement session with senior government officials here today.

Also present were Chief Secretary to the Government Tan Sri Mohd Zuki Ali and Communications and Multimedia Ministry (K-KOMM) secretary-general Datuk Seri Mohammad Mentek.

Furthermore, Annuar said the implementation and planning of strategic communication of each ministry would be done more in a more integrated manner by breaking away from the culture of working in silos.

"It (strategic communication) will be done in a more integrated manner and in support of each other. For example, if an issue is seen to be under the purview of one particular ministry, in terms of government communication, it should be handled jointly by several relevant ministries," he said.

Annuar said the Ministry of Finance had also helped channel a large allocation to enable every ministry to empower their strategic communications.

"The allocation used to be relatively small, but I think it has increased tenfold," he said.

In the engagement session, Annuar said he received good feedback from all ministries which stated their commitment to improving their strategic communications and methods of delivering information to the people.

Among top government officials present at the session were secretaries-general, heads of communication units and press secretaries.

-- BERNAMA