As coronavirus cases continue to spike across the island, Tamils are denied of essential and urgent public health information due to a lack of translators.
The Sunday Times reported that the lack of translators in state offices means that official public communications are only published in Sinhala.
The Presidential Secretariat has been issuing announcements regarding coronavirus in Sinhala on social media but fail to release information in Tamil and English. Mohan Samaranayake, the director general of the Presidential Media Division, claimed that statements and announcements are translated into Tamil and English on time, however, their distribution is handled by another unit within the department.
Lawyer, Aingaran Kugathason, who has repeatedly flagged the lack of Tamil translations of crucial government announcements, said the lack of Tamil translations is not new. . Instead, Tamils are routinely forced to rely on alternative outlets for information.
“During the coronavirus crisis in particular, people were concerned about curfew periods and partial lockdowns since most of those announcements were not released in Tamil on time. For how long will officials continue with lame excuses of lack of people?"
Only three people are available to translate Sinhala into Tamil because vacancies have not been filled for years.
