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Information ministry urged to adopt decentralised ad policy

By Syed Irfan Raza 2015-11-04
ISLAMABAD: A committee of the National Accountability Bureau urged the Ministry of Information on Tuesday to adopt a decentralised advertisement policy so that government departments would have the authority to allot on their own 75 per cent of ads to the media.

But a meeting of the `Prevention Committee on Press Information Department`, presided over by acting NAB chairman Imtiaz Tajwar was informed that the prime minister had recently approved a new advertisement policy giving complete authority to the ministry to issue government ads.

The NAB`s director general (awareness & prevention) and representatives of PID, the Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC), Pakistan Television, Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra), All Pakistan Newspapers Society (APNS) and advertising agencies attended the meeting.

The Ministry of Information was not represented at the meeting.

According to one of the participants, NAB and representatives of APNS, Pemra and advertisement agencies spoke againstthe new advertisement policy and urged the government to withdraw it because it had been formulated without holding consultation with most of the stakeholders.

`The committee believes that the new policy will promote favouritism and corruption in the information ministry and PID,` he told Dawn A NAB spokesman said representatives of the PID gave a presentation on an initiative taken to streamline the advertisement system. Several measures were suggested to curb corruption in the system of releasing government ads. The meeting discussed measures to make the ad release system more transparent.

The acting NAB chairman, who heads the committee, wanted to invite the information secretary and a representative of the Pakistan Broadcasters Association to the next meeting to work out a system which would be put in place by the ministry of information and its attached departments, including ABC, in line with the directives of the Supreme Court.

The meeting decided to ask the Ministry of Information to give a presentation on the current status of implementation of the SC judgment.