ISLAMABAD, Nov 15: Pakistan Television (PTV) administration is investigating the sudden appearance of Rs4 million in its accounts.
A few days back, a transaction of the said amount was made in favour of the national channel, a well-placed official, who requested not be named, told Dawn.
However, the amount does relate to a payment which was recently made to a Dubai-based company named News Production run by Ehtesham Shahid for recording three talk shows on American elections in Dubai. The talk show was hosted by the outgoing managing director, PTV, Dr Shahid Masood. But no recording was done in Dubai, the official said.
When contacted, the acting managing director of PTV, Shahid Nadeem, confirmed that they were looking into the matter; whether the rules were followed in transferring money to Dubai, and then who deposited it back.
The officials concerned would be asked to clarify their position, Mr Nadeem added.
Many eyebrows were raised when the PTV administration transferred Rs4 million to Ehtesham Shahid for the recordings in Dubai, because it was not part of the programme ‘World After Bush’, the official said.
Though PTV had an agreement with Voice of America (VOA) for the latter’s input for the programme, it was never decided to record it in Dubai, as it was only run nationally, the official said.
The money was transferred at a very short notice -- within a week -- without meeting mandatory procedures; due permission from the information ministry and signing of the agreement with the recording company concerned, the official claimed.
However, simply a request was moved by the director marketing, Lt-Col (retired) Hassan Immad Mohamedi, to the director finance of PTV for immediate release of the money.
The money was duly transferred to HSBC, Jebel Ali, Dubai, branch in the account of Ehtesham Shahid, the official said.
Despite repeated attempts, the PTV administration could not reach Mr Ehtesham, who had provided residential address for correspondence purpose. It is illegal under the UAE laws to conduct commercial activities from a residential block, the official said.
Mysteriously, a few days ago the money was transferred back to the PTV account. However, the new administration is still investigating as to how such a huge amount of money was transferred to a person’s account so quickly and then returned without its (administration) demand.
In response to a query, the official said though the money was back with the PTV, the issue was why the rules were not followed in this case, and whether more such irregularities had been committed in the past.
At present, PTV is in serious economic crisis. Besides the ongoing financial crunch, it has failed to recover over Rs7 billion from its defaulters which has put the national channel in crisis.