The Ministry of Industry and Entrepreneurship Development has opened a WhatsApp channel through which members of the public can send questions, requests for clarification and suggestions directly to the minister as voice messages.
The initiative is titled “Ask Handun”, after Industry and Entrepreneurship Development Minister Sunil Handunnetti. Voice messages can be sent to 077 554 1646 on any matter relating to the ministry’s services, the Daily Mirror and Hiru News reported.
Submissions will be reviewed according to their national importance and the nature of the question. The minister’s responses are to be published on his official Facebook page rather than returned privately to the sender, meaning the exchange functions as a public question-and-answer channel rather than a complaints desk.
The choice of voice messages over written forms lowers the barrier for users who are more comfortable speaking than typing, and for Sinhala and Tamil speakers who may not have a convenient keyboard for their language. WhatsApp is among the most widely used messaging platforms in Sri Lanka, and the ministry’s approach places the channel where the audience already is rather than behind a government portal login.
Neither report set out how submissions will be triaged, how many questions the ministry expects to answer, or what happens to messages that are not selected for a public reply. No service-level commitment or response time was announced.
Handunnetti’s ministry covers small and medium enterprise policy, a constituency that deals with the state through multiple agencies. The minister has used direct engagement with the sector before, briefing an IMF delegation on SME challenges in April.
