Government failed to implement assurances of Prime Minister: APNS

The APNS Executive Committee noted with concern that government has failed to implement the assurances of the Prime Minister regarding its demands for 40 percent rate increase, payment of outstanding dues and stoppage of advertisement allocation to dummy and fake publications.
The Executive Committee expressed grave concern over the malicious and scandalous campaign carried out against its Senior Vice-President and publisher, Chief Editor of Daily Ausaf and urged upon the government to take strict and exemplary penal action against the newspapers that have carried out the baseless and seditious campaign to pose a life threat to the publisher.
Sarmad All, the Secretary-General of the All Pakistan Newspapers Society announced the decisions of the Executive Committee meeting held on January 5, 2012, at Islamabad chaired by its President Hameed Haroon. The members from across the country attended the meeting and adopted a unanimous resolution to express their full solidarity with Senior Vice-President Mehtab Khan and demanded that the dummy and fake publications namely Daily Post-mortem, Daily Bhulekha, Daily Punjabi and Weekly Hajweri be taken to task by the government so that these may be stopped to incite public sentiments on baseless allegations. The committee demanded that appropriate actions against these perpetrators of the malicious campaign be taken to task without further delay so that harmful acts towards the life and image of the publisher may be pre-empted.
'The Executive Committee in another resolution urged upon the Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani for the implementation of 3 points' demand duly endorsed and accepted by the Prime Minister at a meeting held on January 10, 2011. The Prime Minister had agreed to raise the pure government and government commercial rates of advertisements in newspapers initially by 40 percent effective from July 1, 2011, to cover official inflation gap of 200 percent over last ten years. The Executive Committee noted that this decision has not been implemented thus leaving APNS members with a poor after taste of the above decision.
The Executive Committee also noted that the Prime Minister had also agreed to immediately clear all government dues to the print media relating to Government advertisements for the year 2010-11 as well as the dues for ads released by the Federal Government devolved Ministries consequent upon the 18th Amendment. The accumulated figures amount to about Rs 153 crores which has caused the closure of multiple accredited agencies that channel government business. It is unfortunate that not a single rupee has been paid due to continued obstructions by the AGPR and other key ministries
The APNS Executive Committee pointed out that the Prime Minister had also agreed to stop allocation of government advertisement to dummy and fake publications, the trend has now reached unprecedented levels. Unfortunately, no action has so far been taken on the directives of the Prime Minister on the above issues. The Executive Committee endorsed the decision to suspend all advertisements of the Federal Government and authorised the President to take further actions if required.
The Executive Committee greeted Pir Sufaid Shah Hamdard on bestowing of Baba-e-Pashto Sahafat Award by the World Pashto Conference and gave him standing ovation. The Executive Committee approved grant of associate membership on the recommendations of provincial committees.
The Executive Committee approved the recommendations of the Advertising Committee and decided to revise the fee structure for advertising agencies with effect from January 1, 2012. The committee approved provisional accreditation of Ms Impact Advertising Services (Pvt) Limited Lahore and Ms Emotion (PVt) Limited Karachi. It also granted restructuring of Ms Manhattan Pakistan (Pvt) Limited Islamabad and Ms The Linkers Advertisers Islamabad. The accreditation of Ms Firebolt63 was also confirmed. The approval of applications of advertising agencies was subject to the new, fee structure approved by the Executive Committee.-PR