Kaira urges Supreme Court to take action against accusers

Rejecting the allegations of secret funds categorically, Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Qamar Zaman Kaira has urged the Supreme Court to take strict action against those people who charged false allegations.

The minister while speaking to the press conference completely rejected the impression that his ministry operated any secret funds.

He was of the opinion that Opposition Leader in the National Assembly Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan was only responsible for the propaganda, asking him to share evidence with the nation over the matter.

Earlier, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has claimed that he had documentary evidence the government was using a secret fund to lavish fabulous sums on certain media professionals.

“Recording of phone is responsibility of secret agencies and the opposition leader should tell the nation to which agency he belonged to”, he added.

The minister further clarified that the total budge of the Information Ministry was Rs5.58 billion of which Rs3.4 billion was allocated for Radio Pakistan because it was not a profitable organization.

Rs250 million had been earmarked for Pakistan Television to install and run boosters in remote areas of the country, he added.

Kaira explained, “We have a number of organisations, including the Directorate of Film and Publications (DFP), Press Council of Pakistan (PCP) and Press Information Department (PID) and Rs530 million was allocated for press attachés abroad”.

He said that an amount of Rs100 million was reserved for special publicity and a small amount of Rs12 million kept under the head of secret fund.

He was of the opinion that this is meant for treatment of ailing journalists, their family members and marriage of journalists’ daughters.

He, however, refused to reveal the identification of media professionals being provided financial assistance.

The minister also informed that expenses on trips made by journalists invited to the capital from cities and countries were met from this head, adding that press clubs in several parts of the country were also supported by it.

Assuring the court that record would be produced during the next hearing, he surprised how billions of rupees could be distributed among journalists when the total amount allocated for media was just Rs 12 million.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=32437

Posted by Faisal Farooq on Sep 11 2012. Filed under Pakistan, Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.