Khamal Georges

No cit­i­zens will re­ceive a Na­tion­al Award this year for out­stand­ing ser­vice be­cause there will no Na­tion­al Awards Cer­e­mo­ny for the sec­ond year run­ning.

Last year, no of­fi­cial rea­son was giv­en, but it was ex­pect­ed that the cer­e­mo­ny would have been put off be­cause of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. This year, the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent has re­ceived no list of awardees from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter which would trig­ger the plan­ning process.

In re­sponse to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia, the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent said, "To date, the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent has re­ceived no list of na­tion­al award re­cip­i­ents for ei­ther 2020 or 2021. If, and when we do, the health reg­u­la­tions in force at that time will in­form what type of cer­e­mo­ny, if any, will be held." There was no fur­ther clar­i­fi­ca­tion about why no list was re­ceived.

Ac­cord­ing to the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent's web­site, "there is a Na­tion­al Awards Com­mit­tee, head­ed by the Chief Jus­tice, which over­sees the nom­i­na­tion process and in­ves­ti­gates the nom­i­nees be­fore mak­ing its rec­om­men­da­tions to the Prime Min­is­ter." Any per­son or or­ga­ni­za­tion may sub­mit a nom­i­na­tion to the Na­tion­al Awards Com­mit­tee, of a cit­i­zen for a Na­tion­al Award. An ad­ver­tise­ment is usu­al­ly placed in all the dai­ly news­pa­pers and on oth­er plat­forms invit­ing cit­i­zens to sub­mit nom­i­na­tions which was done this year. The com­mit­tee eval­u­ates the nom­i­nees and sub­mits a list to the Prime Min­is­ter.

Ac­cord­ing to the web­site, "the Pres­i­dent con­fers the awards, on the ad­vice of the Prime Min­is­ter giv­en af­ter con­sid­er­a­tion of the rec­om­men­da­tion of the Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee." Be­cause of the time Guardian Me­dia re­ceived the in­for­ma­tion, it was dif­fi­cult to get re­spons­es from the Of­fice of the Chief Jus­tice and the Prime Min­is­ter about this and last year's nom­i­nees.