The National Assembly Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting on Wednesday directed the ministry to ensure clearance of dues and salaries to the media workers at the earliest. The committee meeting was held under the chairmanship of MNA Javed Latif. The committee took into account the issues of non-payment of salaries to journalists and issues of violence against them.
The committee expressed its grave concern over the issue of non-payment of salaries to the media persons and directed the M/o Information, Broadcasting, National History & Literary Heritage to take stringent measures to clear the remaining dues without any further delay and report to the committee in its next meeting.
The committee stressed upon the need for effective legislation to safeguard the interests of media persons and directed that the ministry may propose legislation to remove complications in the existing system to streamline the services of media persons so that committee could support it accordingly.
Dr Nafisa Shah moved a resolution which was supported by the chair and members of opposition and MQM on the recent acts of abuse and violence against working journalists by some of the government functionaries and recommended that responsible persons may be held accountable as per law.
Earlier, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Information, Broadcasting, National History and Literary Heritage Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan briefly apprised the committee of the efforts undertaken by them to safeguard the interests of the media persons and resolve the problems being faced by them.
Awan said the government has announced Interim Wage Board Award in consultation with the media organisations and now efforts are under way to turn it into permanent award.
She said Ministry of Information stands with media workers and she is making sure to take all-out steps for their welfare.
Earlier, Awan said in a tweet that the government faces no threat from the All Parties Conference of the opposition parties. She said the opposition leadership has always jilted Maulana Fazalur Rehman after asking him to lead the protest.
She said, opposition's weak shoulders could not bear the weight of his political deprivation.
She said that outcome of Maulana's adventure would be like his election venture. After failure of All Parties Conference (APC) misadventure, Rehman should focus on religious services. She said Rehman should devote his next four years in service of the religion following the failure of the APC.
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