Hulabaloo over Ranjan going to Media Ministry to question how channels were allocated to Namal, Yasara and LTTE

Hulabaloo over Ranjan going to Media Ministry to question how channels were allocated to Namal, Yasara and LTTE

Deputy Minister Ranjan Ramanayaka has visited the Media Ministry at Narahenpita yesterday in order to find information about owners of rupavahini radio channels of Sri Lanka in accordance with the Right to Information Act. On that occasion when he had approached the Additional Secretary and put forward his requirement, the Deputy Minister had been

asked to fill out the required form and at that moment he had gone into a room when two lady officers of the ministry had begun to question him. The officers who were cordial enough to Ranjan had provided the necessary information while exposing their replies to the media cameras too.

Thereby it was revealed at that moment that the CSN Channel had been under the name of Yasara Abeynaike and not under Rohan Weliwita's name and that no channel has been requested directly under Namal's name. It was also said that though it was so, channels have been applied for under names of companies and not under private names. The officers also told that the LTTE Organisation  too had registered channels under that name but were scrapped off later.

It was however revealed  from the behaviour of the Secretary of the Ministry that Ranjan had secured some information from the lady officers concerned by creating some inconvenience to them which information actually should have been withheld from him when he questioned them. A short while later after Ranjan left the premises, the Secretary of Mass Media had summoned a special media briefing and had explained matters relating to it. What the Secretary said on that occasion was that after Ranjan filled out the form it would be decided whether the information requested by him was to be provided to him in a systematic manner, subsequent to which the said information would be supplied to him within 14 days after that and that no individual can elicit information by causing inconvenience to the said officers. The relevant video of that occasion, from below