LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, Punjab, chief organiser Aliya Hamza Malik says the government’s proposed Punjab Public Awareness and Dissemination of Information Bill 2025 aims at blocking inquiries into government-funded advertisements.

Under this proposed law, Ms Malik in a statement said the decision of the information secretary on promotional campaigns, paid for by public money, would be final and immune from judicial review, even by the Supreme Court.

“This is a blatant attempt to shut down transparency and conceal how taxpayers’ money is being spent,” she said.

Stating that access to information is a fundamental right of the people, Ms Malik said the party would not allow this right to be taken away through ‘legislative manoeuvring’. She alleged corruption was already widespread in Punjab, and now the government was trying to give it legal cover through this bill.

She said the motive of the legislation was clear that the rulers wanted to protect their vested interests and facilitate political self-promotion.

She said PTI’s legal counsel, Advocate Azhar Siddique, had already filed a petition in the Lahore High Court against the misuse of government advertisements for personal glorification.

She said the introduction of this bill seemed to be a desperate response to avoid accountability through constitutional petitions, rest assured, the party would challenge it through every legal channel available.

Moreover, another troubling bill was seeking to permit renaming of any public project in Punjab. “We’ve already seen how every initiative, new or old, is being re-branded with the names of the ‘so-called’ Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz and her father,” she said and observed this had erased institutional history and insulted public ownership. If this continues, soon even cemeteries will bear their names, she commented.

“Punjab is not the personal property of any one family. It belongs to the people. We will resist these authoritarian moves on all fronts; legally, politically, and publicly,” Ms Malik said.

Published in Dawn, June 15th, 2025