KARACHI: The All Pak­is­tan Newspapers Society (APNS) has expressed concern over delay in payment of outstanding dues of the print media in spite of the prime minister’s directive to clear arrears by June 30.

Sarmad Ali, the APNS secretary general, said after a meeting of the society’s executive committee on Monday that the federal government had so far paid only Rs140 million to the print media out of an agreed amount of Rs910 million. The committee called upon the government to expedite the process of payment so that the print media could surmount its financial woes.

The APNS drew the attention of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa information minister to a decision to waive the payment of sales tax and registration fee for newspapers, regretting that the decision had not been implemented.

The executive committee noted with concern that some accredited advertising agencies had not cleared the dues of newspapers even after receiving payments from the federal and provincial governments. The meeting decided to approach the governments concerned for blacklisting of such agencies.

The APNS also decided to request the Press Infor­mation Department and the provincial information departments not to release advertisements through agencies suspended by it.

The committee set up a body, headed by Khushnood Ali Khan, to take steps for recovery of dues from defaulting agencies.

The APNS decided to grant full membership to Daily Jhoke, Multan, and associate membership to daily Nawa-e-Azad, Multan, monthly Engineering Post, Lahore, and monthly Hospitality Plus of Lahore.

The meeting was attended, among others, by Rameeza Majid Nizami, Senior Vice President of APNS, Mumtaz A. Tahir, the society’s vice president, Sarmad Ali, secretary general, and Syed Muhammad Munir Jilani and Shahab Zuberi.

Published in Dawn, July 2nd, 2019