ICTA disassociates itself from GMOA’s controversial Exit Strategy

Monday, 20 April 2020 01:34 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

GMOA under fire after public document titled GMOA/ICTA exit strategy for COVID-19 in SL
Document advocated racial profiling of Muslim population in districts
ICTA has not contributed to published document, not consulted on nor approved content
GMOA has since amended document deleting reference to particular community

The Information and Communication Agency (ICTA) disassociated itself from a controversial document published by the GMOA on an Exit Strategy for COVID-19 in which it advocated racial profiling.

“We are aware that the Government Medical Officers’ Association has published a document titled ‘GMOA/ICTA COVID-19 EXIT STRATEGY SRI LANKA’ on 17 April. We wish to mention that we have not contributed to the published document and were not consulted on nor approve of its content,” ICTA Chairman Jayantha de Silva said in a notice posted on the Agency’s official web page on Saturday.

“We understand that the GMOA has since withdrawn the said document and republished it without ICTA branding and without the two ICTA directors as contributors. This communication is an initial announcement to clarify the ICTA role in this document. Further notices may be published in due course as appropriate,” the ICTA Chairman said.

The GMOA has made changes to its exit strategy for COVID-19 in Sri Lanka after it came under fire for advocating racial profiling as part of the methodology for implementing the strategy.

The GMOA had uploaded the document called GMOA/ICTA’s concept paper on COVID-19 Exit Strategy on Friday but by Saturday morning the references it had made specifying the Muslim population to be included in data as part of the Exit Strategy was deleted. The reference to ICTA too was omitted from the new document uploaded on its website.

The GMOA drew harsh criticism over social media due to its attempts to racially profile people with ICTA Board Member Dr. Sanjiva Weerawarana taking to Twitter distancing the Agency from the document.

The Agency followed up with an official statement on Saturday.

The doctors trade union has prepared an exit strategy based on the common structure which is applicable to a surgical theatre in hospitals, which is supposed to be sterile in the context of a contaminated environment and therefore the country will be categorised under three main zones namely Sterile zone, Contaminated zone and Buffer zone.

In the concept paper, the GMOA gives an example by using the Colombo district using two sets of data of which only the data regarding population is accurate. “In order to clearly explain the methodology, all the other data as mentioned below are dummy data which are areas of each Divisional Secretariat (DS), the Muslim population and all other data included.”

The second data set comprises 12 variables regarding each divisional secretariat with the vital variables identified as number of corona cases, number quarantined, population density and Muslim population.