ISLAMABAD: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan on Wednesday acknowledged the need for digitisation in the attached departments of the information and broadcasting ministry to bring transparency, especially in giving advertisements to media.

“As long as we do not minimise human interaction and reduce the discretionary powers of the officials the distortions in the system cannot be rectified,” she told the Senate Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting.

The digitisation process to be completed by the end of next month would clear many issues, she added.

“We will place the information on the website to make it public and transparent, but the beneficiaries of the current system are not only resisting the change but also spreading disinformation about reforms,” Dr Awan added.

Chairman of the committee Senator Faisal Javed Khan inquired about the progress made in this regard, and the committee was informed that there were around 4,200 dailies and weeklies across the country registered with the press information department, having circulation of around 20 million.

“After a thorough scrutiny the number has come down to 1,680 publications and their circulation figure was around 970,000.There is a need for further examination as many papers were publishing a limited copies only to show their existence,” Dr Awan said.

She said the issue of fake and dummy papers would further streamline after the whole system was placed online.

The PM’s special assistant also highlighted the features of the new advertisement policy and said that there would be separate cheques for payment to the advertising agency and the media where the advertisements were published.

“This will reduce underhand deals or stop payments by the ad agencies, etc,” she added.

Responding to a comment by Senator Faisal Javed regarding non-payment of salaries by certain media houses to their employees, the special assistant said there was a need to listen the concerns of owners and managements too.

They too were facing the impact of economic crunch and this committee would have to invite representatives of the Pakistan Broadcasters Association (PBA) and All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) before reaching any conclusion, she said.

She told the committee that Rs870 million had already been paid to the media houses, but around Rs1 billion was still pending.

The committee said this payment should be linked to payment of pending salaries of journalists and non-journalist employees.

The committee recommended that the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority should revisit its law and suggest the amendments needed to make a mechanism so that licences of private media houses were linked with timely payment of salaries and proper service agreements and service structures. It also suggested that the upcoming government campaigns should be linked with the payment of salaries by the media houses.

The committee decided to call a PBA representative in the next meeting.

It also called upon the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) to understand its role in ensuring compliance of registered companies as the electronic media was registered with the SECP.

Senators Sabir Shah, Rukhsana Zuberi, Pervaiz Rasheed and Sajjad Turi also attended the meeting.

Published in Dawn, January 30th, 2020