ISLAMABAD: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain on Wednesday said the PML-N Vice President, Maryam Nawaz, doled out Rs18 billion from the national kitty to reward blue-eyed journalists and media houses at federal and Punjab levels in their last tenure.

Addressing media, he said Maryam Nawaz doled out these public funds as head of a media cell at the Prime Minister’s House during the PML-N previous tenure.

“With approval of the party’s media cell, supervised by Maryam Nawaz, Rs9,625,430,902 were utilised for funding of federal government (advertisements), while around Rs10 billion for Punjab government.”

Flanked by Minister for Energy Hammad Azhar, the minister announced to share the record with media persons after the briefing.

He said advertisements for the federal and provincial governments were managed by the “notorious media cell” set up by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) to reward specific journalists over stories in their favour.

Fawad said the story about media cell in 2015 had pointed out that a special media cell had been working under the direct supervision of Maryam Nawaz at the Prime Minister House.

Initially, 15 members were made part of the cell and later, Rs20 million were allocated for additional recruitment and was mandated to run targeted media campaigns, he added.

He said Maryam Nawaz in Wednesday’s news conference affirmed that she was supervising the cell during the PML-N tenure.

A video clip of Maryam’s news conference was also screened.

Fawad said admission of Maryam of curtailing or blocking advertisements for specific television channels was certainly “an immoral and illegal act”.

“The handling of public fund by a private person is a crime under the jurisdiction of the FIA (Federal Investigation Agency), but also liable of disqualification,” he said, while pointing out that Maryam had already been disqualified under Article 62 and 63 of the Constitution.

The minister said Maryam’s admission had proved that as to how the PML-N carried out “systematic manipulation” of the media during its last tenure.

Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said it was an eye-opening revelation for the journalist community and media organisations.

With this, it could be assumed that as to how much difficulty was being faced by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) when it had not alternate such resources.

“We do not have the resources to dole out the huge amount of Rs15 to 18 billion to someone. We have decided to conduct a serious inquiry to probe the matter,” he said.

He said thorough investigations would be conducted how a private person (Maryam) was running the show, following the confession of Maryam Nawaz that she was awarding and punishing the journalists and media houses despite, having no official position.

It might be noted that the misappropriation of public money was a separate criminal case, he added.

The details of the doled out amount collected by Information Ministry has already been shared. While provinces were being asked to share the amount spent by that media cell among media houses and journalists from provincial exchequer.

The details taken would be shared accordingly.

Responding to a question, the minister said Maryam was calling the shot as the then Minister for Information and Broadcasting Pervaiz Rashid was “a puppet”.

To a query, Fawad said the PML-N was trying to sabotage corruption cases. The appeal against corruption cases were in court and they should simply present the evidence before the divisional bench to enable it to analyse the evidence.

To another question, he said a common man was of the opinion that looted money should be recovered from all those thieves.

Simple was that Nawaz Sharif should return the looted money, if he did not want to serve jail term, he added.

To a query, he said Maryam’s confessions were also a test case for journalist organisations what was their opinion on the entire episode.

Responding to a question, Hammad Azhar said Maryam Safdar had confessed that, she ran the media cell, and blocked the ads of some media channels during the PML-N’s regime.

She did not mention the names of the media houses, which were rewarded as it was obvious that – if one was indulged in punishing someone, he or she might have rewarded someone for their services.

The PML-N would have to answer for squandering public money, he added.

He said such dirty tactics were tantamount to resorting to fascism.

On the other hand, the PML-N was used to accuse the PTI as a fascist party on posting a tweet, or challenging a media houses’ accusations.

“Maryam should clarify why some media houses still remembered her anxiously.”

The answers of all questions would be dug out in the inquiry, he said, adding, the findings of inquiry would be duly shared.

The freedom of media could not be compromised, Hammad said adding that the PML-N leadership was confessing their crimes right from the ownership of Avenfield apartments to media cell and hopefully remaining confessions would come to fore also.

The PTI government would share the different tactics being used by the PML-N to control media, he added.

He said the PML-N had doled out plots to many journalists, also targeted their opponents and deprived many journalists from their jobs, however, such tactics would no more be tolerated.

Responding to a question, Hammad said it could be assumed that the emergence of different fake videos and audio tapes were the handy work of Maryam’s media cell.

“Had such confessions of influencing media were made by the daughter of a prime minister in a Western country – their whole family would have landed in jail,” he added.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021