Rs 18bln doled out to reward blue-eyed journalists, channels in PML-N last tenure: Fawad Chaudhry

ISLAMABAD, Nov 24 (APP):Minister for Information and Broadcasting Chaudhry Fawad Hussain on Wednesday said PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz doled out Rs 18 billion from national kitty to reward blue-eyed journalists and media channels 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 PML-N previous tenure.
“With approval of the party’s media cell, supervised by Maryam Nawaz, Rs 9,625,430,902 were utilized for funding of federal government (advertisements), while around Rs 10 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, Rs 20 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 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.