Govt partners with media to combat illicit drugs

The Government is collaborating with all mainstream media outlets to fight the illicit drug crisis in the county.

Assistant Minister for Information Aliki Bia confirmed this while responding to the President Ratu Naiqama Lalabalavu’s opening speech in Parliament.

He says last week, the government successfully convened the first of many consultations with representatives of media organisations in the country.

Bia says the purpose of this meeting was to explore collaboration between government agencies and the media in combating the spread of illicit drugs.

The Assistant Minister says he convened this meeting at the invitation of the Minister for Policing, who is keen to engage the mainstream media in implementing the national strategy to reduce the supply, demand, and harm of illicit narcotics.

He has also acknowledged media companies in the country for their support and endorsement of this crucial initiative of the Coalition Government.

Bia says moving forward, this is the kind of collaboration and partnership that the Department of Information will continue to pursue and promote with all its stakeholders, both in the public and private sectors.

Bia also confirms that starting this month, all national television and radio services will feature content that is public service-oriented. He says under the Government’s Public Service Broadcast Grant Agreements with Fiji Television and MAI TV, and very soon with Communications Fiji Limited, $4 million has been allocated to fund public service programmes for 2025–2026.

Bia says under these agreements, these television and radio stations will run public awareness campaigns and produce programmes on public health, education, culture and sports, drug prevention and law enforcement, gender-based violence, child protection, poverty alleviation and social protection, housing and urban development, rural and outer island development, MSMEs, financial literacy and many more.

He says the beauty of these initiatives, is that they are in addition to the many public service programmes already being delivered by the Fiji Broadcasting Corporation over the years.

He says complementing the PSB Grant initiative is an intensive training programme for officers of the Department of Information in key areas such as social media content generation and management, public relations and media crisis management, photography and videography, news and script writing, translation and radio podcast production.

The Assistant Minister says in partnership with the Fiji Learning Institute for Public Service under the Ministry of Civil Service, the Department has invited local trainers to spearhead this major capacity-building initiative.

He says crucial services like social media management and public relations will not be outsourced.

While responding to the President’s remark on responsible use of social media, Bia says the Online Safety Commission cannot fight this battle alone.

He says no one benefits from spreading toxic and inflammatory speech and there is no medal for being a source of misinformation and fake news.