Awards not conferred but handed out

Jan 15, 2021 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,

There was no conferral of national awards to the 2020 recipients. I understand recipients are being called by OP to come in and pick up their respective medals. It seems the certificates were given out some time ago and now the medals are ready to be handed out.
While it is understood that COVID has had the final say to the usual pomp and ceremony and grandeur associated with the occasion, it would have be more befitting if a simple ceremony, with all COVID protocols in place, was arranged and the President conferred the awards instead of a clerk handing out the medals. In this way, the event would have been memorialized.
A National Award is the highest honour and distinction a country bestows on its deserving citizens for their service. Such an accolade should be afforded the dignity, decorum and stateliness associated with it. To do otherwise places insignificance and unimportance to the award and by extension the awardee.

Shamshun Mohamed