Senate body seeks details of state-run TV coverage to Nawaz, Maryam

ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting Tuesday sought a comprehensive report on the costs incurred on giving coverage to former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz on the state-run TV.

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Informed the committee that main financial problems of the state-owned TV would be solved, if its receivable amounting to Rs5,317.181 million were paid to it. The committee met under the chairmanship of the PTI Senator Faisal Javed Khan here and was attended, among others, by senators Dr Ghous Muhammad Khan Niazi and Syed Sabir Shah of the PML-N, Rubina Khalid of the PPP, MQM's Khushbakht Shujaat, Mushtaq Ahmed of the JI, secretary information and other senior officials from PTV.

The panel chairman called the coverage given to a disqualified prime minister as biased and asked for detailed report on the expenditure incurred in this connection so far, involving the staff, equipment and DSNGs etc. He asserted that public money could not be wasted this way by giving coverage to a disqualified PM and his daughter.

Moreover, the committee also discussed formation of a mechanism in order to make PTV a neutral outlet with equal coverage given to the government and opposition.

The forum was told that the receivables of the state-run TV include payments from power distribution companies (Discos), tax refund from the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), dues of government clients and advertisement payments. The secretary information said that receivables in form of advertisements, which amounted to Rs1,213.103 million, would come soon, but the pending receivables from other areas were a matter of concern and causing huge loss to the state enterprise.

The committee decided to call relevant authorities to resolve the issue and recommended early payments. The forum expressed displeasure over the absence of the minister of state for information, who despite earlier commitment, did not make it to the meeting.

Secretary Information Sardar Ahmed Nawaz Sukhera gave briefing regarding the present structure of PTV and proposed changes in the board of directors, number and nature of different PTV channels, a list of pending and cleared liabilities, details of staff structure, amount required for paying pensions and commutation funds, social media management and programming details among other matters.

While responding to queries of members of the committee regarding in-house and outsourced productions, the secretary information told the committee that PTV was producing only 38 percent of aired content itself, whereas 8 percent content outsourced production and the rest of the airtime was filled with archives which include old dramas, programmes, transmission and music. It was told that if the payments long due to PTV were made, it would be able to manage its finances and have more production which will reduce archival programmes and hence gather more viewership and revenue.

The committee chairman raised the matter of non-payment of honorariums to the PTV staff deputed in the Parliament House, which was announced in the tenure of former chairman Senate Mian Raza Rabbani. The secretary information observed that PTV was already deep in liabilities and pending payments and paying this amount was not possible at this stage. Senator Faisal Javed asked the secretary to submit a written reply to the committee so that the matter could be taken up further formally. The matter of maintaining balance in coverage of political activities of government and opposition was discussed again in the meeting. The committee observed that the huge costs involved in covering these activities and the loss incurred in lost airtime has to be borne by someone and responsibility was to be fixed. Furthermore the committee also raised the issue of pending pensions of PTV employees that are due since April 2016. In response to this, the PTV management promised that the funds worth Rs700 million will be released before Eid.