May 30, 2008	Friday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 24, 1429

ISLAMABAD, May 29: The Senate Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting on Thursday formed a sub-committee to investigate the alleged violation of rules in several recent appointments in the state-run news agency, the Associated Press of Pakistan (APP).

Headed by Senator Haji Mohammad Adeel with senators S M Zaffar, Dr Javaid Laghari and Mir Mohammad Naseer Mengal as members, the sub-committee is mandated to review all recruitments made in APP recently and to see whether those appointed fulfilled the necessary academic and professional requirements and whether provincial quota had been observed.

The sub-committee will submit a report to the standing committee shortly after the budget.

The sub-committee was constituted in a meeting of the standing committee held here at the Parliament House and presided over by its chairman, Senator Liaqat Ali Bangulzai, after members discussed some recent allegations of the violation of rules in a number of appointments on journalistic posts in the APP.

Insiders told Dawn that the committee was informed that several reporters and sub-editors of APP have already moved the court over dozens of recent appointments and alleged that merit had been violated in the process.

The committee also asked the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to ensure merit in future appointments in the news agency. It said provincial quota was also important but merit must not be sacrificed by appointing less competent people and leaving out the brilliant or capable ones.

The committee also recommended that APP should be made an autonomous organisation in order to save it from complete collapse and the frequent interventions of government high ups. It recommended that the Board of Directors (BoD) of the news agency should be a real representative of the federating units and make sure that it grew professionally.

On the occasion, the Chairman Senator Liaqat Ali Bangulzai observed that APP needed to be developed professionally in order to survive in the existing media atmosphere of cut-throat competition.

Senators Haji Mohammad Adeel and Javaid Laghari asked the APP management to give representation to the students of journalism and mass communication departments of Peshawar and Gomal universities in NWFP and Quetta University, Balochistan.

Federal Information and Broadcasting Minister Sherry Rehman said APP had great potential for improvement. However, at present it was in severe financial crunch. For hiring and retaining competent people as reporter and sub-editors, the APP had to introduce salary package according to the market, which was impossible at this stage.

Ms Rehman said she would also take up the matter of public service messages with all television channels in order to convince them to allocate their 10 per cent air time to such messages.

She said the state-controlled Pakistan Television (PTV) had already allotted 10 per cent of its time to the public service messages.