Andrew Solomon Napuat

Member of Parliament (MP) for Tanna, Andrew Napuat is making a call to the Health authorities to come out publicly with more information on the COVID-19 vaccine.

Citizens have the constitutional right to speak freely about the vaccine, he said.

In a video that MP Napuat posted on YouTube on the October 17, 2021, he spoke openly about the lack of information surrounding the COVID-19 vaccine.

MP Napuat told Daily Post the video carries the concerns of members of the public who want the MPS to come out and speak on their behalf, and raise their concerns about the vaccine.

The leader stated in the video that he has many questions concerning the vaccine. He has raised the said questions with the Ministry of Health (MoH) and many health workers.

His questions were voiced multiple times, including when parliament came to talk about the issue of the vaccine for the first time.

Before the motion passed to give indemnity to pharmaceutical companies that were to supply the vaccines to Vanuatu, MP Napuat had voiced his questions and concerns. 

Even when the majority vote pushed the Indemnity decision through, the MP asked for an extension on the vaccination rollout dates, so more information could be gathered about the vaccine and its side effects before citizens were asked to take it.

“With Vanuatu now rolling out the vaccination programs during this pandemic, it has affected us worldwide,” Napuat said. 

“I raised many questions to MOH and the Minister of Health. I wanted to know what exactly was in the vaccine that would be put into citizen’s bodies. I asked about awareness plans, and until today, I have no satisfactory answers from the government, Minister of Health and health officials.”

At that time government had majority votes, and hence passed the indemnity decision.

MP Napuat strongly advocates that information about the COVID-19 vaccine be given in full. He said a recent Council of Ministers (COM) decision threatens leaders and citizens not to speak out against the vaccine. He said the people and leaders have that right under Chapter 2 of the Constitution, allowing that freedom.

The video has since then been watched over 9,800 times and has been shared on Facebook over 20 times in several groups.

Chapter 2 of the Constitution that the MP was referring to in his video states that citizens of Vanuatu have multiple freedoms, including that of expression and freedom of assembly and association.

MP Napuat said the COM decision breaches both of these freedoms as the COM meeting dated July 8, 2021, provided COM decision number 154 (7) which revealed that COM approved that as part of the State of Emergency (SOE), the Minister of Climate Change is to issue regulating orders from the Ministry of Internal Affairs(MOIA) to:

 (a) Deal with including arrest or detain those who spread or work to undermine the government effort to protect the population against COVID-19.

 (b) Deal with including arrest or detain under the Public Order Act those who disseminate false rumours causing fear and disorder to public”

The Tanna MP told Daily Post that the fact is that “habeas corpus” is not suspended in a Climate Change SOE. Ministry of Internal Affairs cannot act unless, and until the Climate Change has issued specific Regulation Orders (RO) and the said RO are gazetted in the Government Gazette by the State Law Office.

“As far as we know, there has been no Regulation Orders gazetted as part of the COM decision, but our leaders have been informing us of imminent threat of arrest to muzzle us or citizens from speaking out about the vaccine,” he said.

Following the call for more information that the video featured, MP Napuat has made many efforts to gather information.

“During the month of September and October, we had exchanges of emails to the Director General (DG) and Directors of Health,” he said.

“We gave them information as well as asked questions but not all our questions were answered till today. We then sent official letters signed by four MPs, requesting information for our own analysis.”

The MP added that so far only the Director of Civil Registry and Vital Statistics has responded on October 19.

 “This is possibly because of the way we have come out to state our dissatisfaction over lack of information which is why we received it today. The Director cautioned us that the information is confidential so we will not disclose it,” he said.

Despite several attempts to reach the DG of Health to get his comments on the email and statements on the matters that MP Napuat has brought up, Daily Post has had no success in reaching the DG. 

 However, Dr. Samuel Posikai from the Ministry of Health has stated that since these concerns came from MPs, DG Russel Tamata will be making a statement in response to the public concerns, that MP Napuat and MP John Salong had brought up in their video.

source:Vanuatu daily post