Cable operators are bound to comply with Pemra rules: Pervaiz Rashid

‘Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Sath’

KARACHI: Murad Ali Shah, having secured 88 votes in a House of 168 MPAs, has been elected as the new chief minister of Sindh, said Shahzeb Khanzada on Geo News programme, ‘Aaj Shahzeb Khanzada Kay Sath’, on Friday.

He said that Murad Ali Shah, in his capacity as a provincial minister, had abstained from keeping a large protocol, and now having been elected the chief minister of the province, he does not have any intention of keeping a large protocol.

In this regard, senior analyst, Talat Hussain, said on the programme that the new chief minister has only one year at his disposal and not 22 months because a government’s fifth year is consumed in election preparations. Thus the new chief minister practically has only one year to bring about the changes he has hinted at.

Talat Hussain said that at the end of the day the new chief minister would only be able to achieve what Pervez Khattak had once said that “Imran Khan is a very energetic person, but I can only do so much”.

The senior analyst said that he does not think that the new chief minister would be able to deliver in a lot many areas. However, the new chief minister has said some very commendable things in his maiden speech at the provincial assembly.

Talat Hussain said that the problem with Bilawal Bhutto Zardari is that he says one thing in Islamabad, Lahore and Azad Kashmir, but when he visits Sindh his rhetoric gets exposed as being superficial.

Meanwhile, in a different segment of the programme, the Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Pervaiz Rashid, while commenting on the cable operators having changed Geo’s slot on the cable network and pushing it down to some very last numbers, said, “Shahzeb, I condemn the act in the strongest possible terms. No one has the right to deprive the people of Pakistan of their right to information by changing the number of a news channel and pushing it down the order where hundreds of thousands of television sets just won’t be able to access the people’s much loved news channel.”

The minister said that the cable operators are bound to follow Pemra laws. The cable operators are bound to abide by an order of the Supreme Court of Pakistan asking them to keep the news channel in its slot and that they must not move the news channel from there. And there are clear instructions vis-à-vis Geo, and whosoever happens to have negated those instructions has actually committed a crime.

“That person must be held accountable for their crime under the laws of Pakistan, and the government would play its role in this regard,” said Pervaiz Rashid.

“Pakistan is a democratic country, and there is no place in the country for the practice that tramples upon the freedom of the press and that imposes restrictions on the freedom of the media,” said the federal minister for Information and Broadcasting.

Pervaiz Rashid said that there are many television channels which day in and day out insult the elected government, parliament, the democratic system, the prime minister and other political leaders. These channels indulge in spreading rumours, but at the end of the day one has to tolerate them despite the fact that all these things are illegal, unethical and they violate the code of conduct, and yet one tolerates them for the basic reason that one should not do anything which might inadvertently clamp down on democratic liberties. 

Pervaiz Rashid said that freedom of expression is the fundamental right of any society which in turn strengthens the state. He said that suppressing democracy puts the security of a state in jeopardy.

The minister said the government has instructed Pemra to investigate the matter and contact the cable operators to tell them that under the pledge they have made in their licence and under the light of the orders of the Supreme Court of Pakistan, they must restore the original slot of the channel. He said that the law would take its course in this regard.

In a still different segment of the programme, the Minister for Water and Power, Khawaja Asif, while commenting on 

the Nandipur power plant incurring billions of rupees loss a month, told Shahzeb Khanzada that as long as filters are not attached to the plant, it wouldn’t be able to deliver on its potential of producing 425 megawatts of electricity. He said that the filters would be installed either at the end of the month of August or at the beginning of September.

Meanwhile, commenting on the nomination of Hilary Clinton to be the Democratic Party candidate for the presidential election, Shahzeb Khanzada said that Hilary is facing a rival who is being criticized from all quarters, but the contest is bound to be very tough. Hilary’s rival is Donald Trump. Despite the fact that Trump has been criticised by every section of the US media, the polls are saying that the contest is going to be neck and neck.