All institutions including state media have become hollow: Fawad

LAHORE: Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry has said that all our state and private institutions, including the state media, have become hollow currently and they are in need of reformation.

He was addressing the launching ceremony of a book, ‘Talkhiyan’, by Ali Ahmad Dhiloon, at Aiwan-e-Iqbal here on Saturday.

He said Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf was given mandate for holding the corrupt accountable, and giving an ‘NRO’ to the corrupt opposition would be like deceiving its voters.

The minister reiterated the government’s resolve to eliminate corruption from the country as per the public mandate, given to it. He said cases against Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari and Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) supremo Nawaz Sharif were not filed during the tenure of the PTI government.

He said bitterness had gripped the country for the past few decades. However, he added, the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan did not have any enmity with anyone. He said bitterness would lessen with the passage of time but the accountability process would continue.

He said: “The previous governments of PML-N and PPP destroyed the state institutions through political appointments. “Steel Mills and the PIA among other institutions were also destroyed,” regretted the minister, adding “when institutions go down, the country also goes down.”

Fawad Chaudhry said all-out efforts were being made for economic stability in the country. He said the country’s exports were on the rise while imports were declining day by day as a result of prudent economic policies of the PTI government.

The information minister said Prime Minister Imran Khan visited foreign countries to explore new avenues for improvement of national economy. He said the government had set a target of achieving economic goals this year.

Lawyers, intellectuals, journalists, students and people from all walks of life attended the ceremony.

Speaking at the ceremony, Lahore Press Club President Arshad Ansari called upon the incumbent federal and provincial governments to take onboard all stakeholders for solving problems of the media industry. He said various newspapers and television channels were closing down in the country, rendering journalists jobless on a large scale. He said the journalist community would be forced to take to the streets if the government did not launch serious efforts to solve their problems. He threatened to stage a sit-in in front of the Parliament House if problems of journalist community were not solved.

Addressing the information minister, present at the ceremony, the LPC president said it was unfortunate that the journalist community considered the incumbent government anti-journalist. He called upon the minister to take measures for ending this perception among journalists.

Arshad Ansari also asked the media houses owners to stop lay-offs in the name of financial crisis. He regreted that a media personality was being honoured by the government while workers of his organisation were without salaries for almost four months.