JEDDAH: Their job is to communicate — but many of them are mute.
A recent survey of government spokespeople by Makkah newspaper found that only a minority of those charged with speaking to the press would respond — even when it involved very simple inquiries.

Out of the 18 assessed, only four spokespeople replied within the first three days, while the other 14 did not respond within five working days, the deadline set by the newspaper.

The newspaper sent the questions to the official email addresses of each of the spokespeople, unless it was asked to use a different means of communication.

The spokespeople on test were selected at random.

The newspaper said that it was driven to launch the experiment because so many of its journalists had faced long waits — or even silence — when putting in requests to government spokespeople.

Ten of the spokespeople did not give timely replies, while four did not even provide a means of communication to send questions.

Four, however, give prompt responses, with Abdullah Al-Khorayef, spokesperson for the General Authority of Civil Aviation, responding to a request in just 1 hour and 27 minutes.