Akash Sama­roo

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.