ISLAMABAD, June 8: The PTV managing director has informed the ad-hoc Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that PTV does not get paid for its services to the government.

H. U. Beg, who was presiding over the PAC meeting here on Saturday, asked the principal accounts officer to take up the matter with the government so that the PTV as well as the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation (PBC) could get paid for their services for or on behalf of the government.

The government may also absorb the losses for those media projects which have been established in the national interest despite being non-viable economically, he added.

The MD, however, said the PTV had not only been able to offset its accumulated losses of Rs703.31 million but actually made a Rs80 million profit in the financial year ending on June 30, 2001.

“There would have been a much larger profit margin if the PTV did not have to absorb the losses made on account of non-viable channels and stations,” he said and added, these losses amounted to more than Rs300 million annually.

The managing director said that a comprehensive plan had been submitted to the government, envisaging an expenditure of Rs2.34 billion on equipment and other facilities to enable the PTV to compete with other local and foreign TV channels.

Mr Beg acknowledged that there were positive changes visible in media related organizations, particularly in the PTV.

Earlier, the secretary for economic affairs informed the PAC that the entire debt liabilities of the government of Pakistan had been updated and computerized in February 2002.

A debt office is being established in the finance ministry to deal with the issues pertaining to acquiring, rescheduling and paying the loans.

The total foreign debt stood at $35.6 billion as of March 31, 2002, including $32.26 billion of the “pure” external loans and liabilities and $3.787 billion of the liabilities on account of foreign currency bonds, foreign currency accounts, bank deposits of friendly countries and debt retirement funds.

The meeting was also attended by Lt-Gen (retd) Talat Masud, Ahadullah Akmal, Muzaffar Ahmed, Hasan Bhutto, Shaukat Hussain Kazmi, Dr Waseem Azhar and S. M. Zafarullah, besides the deputy auditor general, accountant general, the secretary of economic affairs division, the secretary to ministry of information and media development, the PTV’s MD, the APP director-general and other senior officers of the departments concerned.