New policy in offing for issuance of Sindh govt ads: Murtaza

KARACHI: The Sindh Chief Minister’s Advisor on Information and Law Barrister, Murtaza Wahab, has said the Sindh government is finalising a new policy for issuing government advertisements to the press and media. The advisor was talking to the office bearers of the All Pakistan Newspapers’ Society during his visit to the APNS office on Monday.

He said a new advertisement policy would be placed before the Sindh cabinet for approval. He said the policy would make the process of issuance of government advertisements to the media fully transparent and just. The Sindh Information advisor said due economic protection would be provided to the newspapers belonging to vernacular press of the Sindhi language just like the benefits being extended by the government to the Urdu and English dailies. He also said lawful action has been initiated to rescind declaration of the ‘newspapers’ without any valid circulation and readership.

The information advisor said in the past such “Dummy” newspapers were able to obtain government advertisements but now such fake dailies would be blacklisted to stop issuance of more advertisements to them. Barrister Murtaza said from now onwards the government advertisements would be issued transparently.

Responding to the queries of the members of APNS, Barrister Murtaza Wahab said a mechanism would be adopted to duly clear the accumulated arrears of the APNS member publications related to the governments advertisements. He said these arrears would be cleared very soon.

Despite the advent and proliferation of the electronic and digital media in the society, Barrister Murtaza said nobody could deny the importance of print publications including newspapers, magazines, and other periodicals as their content could be used as a formal record of history anywhere. He said the democratically elected Sindh government of PPP would utilize all resources to fully support the print media industry to ensure its survival.

The information advisor said the previous PPP governments always stood for the right to freedom of expression and no restriction was imposed to deny this fundamental right and this tradition would continue by the provincial government in future as well.

On the occasion, ANPS General Secretary Syed Sarmad Ali, members Javed Shamsi, Younus Mahar, Mangal Das, and other participants of the session briefed the provincial Information Advisor about issues of the print media.

Talking to newsmen after the meeting, Sindh Information Advisor said the “U-turns” being taken by the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has now emerged as the form of “about-turns”. “If taking steps for welfare of people and providing them jobs is a sin then we fully admit to the commission of this sin,” he said.