Mr Nisar Memon is a competent, decent, upright fellow who has been lumped with a portfolio we wouldn’t wish on our worst enemies. The Information Ministry is a veritable bed of thorns. By and large, it is inhabited by the scum of earlier rogue regimes. At any rate, it has no right to exist in a democratic country.
However, to expect the good Mr Memon to abolish his Ministry with one stroke of his Big Blue pen would be unrealistic. Mr Memon could always argue that he doesn’t have the mandate for that. Fair enough. But Mr Memon should know that he will feel the heat if he doesn’t come up with some sorely needed initiatives to clean-up this vast den of conspiracies. A quick check-list is therefore in order.
(1) PTV and PBC are choked with corrupt and ‘sifarshi’ party-political loyalists. These scoundrels are easily identifiable. If they’re allowed to cling to their seats, sooner or later (as the electoral campaign kicks up dust and sensitivities begin to get frayed over state-owned media coverage) they will do irreparable harm to Mr Memon’s credibility and, by extension, to prime minister Moeen Qureshi’s avowed neutrality.
Mr Memon should therefore pick up a broom and sweep these people aside. He might also advise Mr Qureshi that lugging around the former prime minister’s controversial cabinet, press and military secretaries is creating ill-will in independent circles. Surely, Mr Qureshi should know better.
(2) Apart from the Intelligence Bureau, a number of ‘journalists’ are, or have been, on the Information Ministry’s payroll, plotting and planting their sordid little conspiracies on an unsuspecting public. These rascals have done incalculable harm to the credentials of the press. Mr Memon should tell us who they are so that we can deal with them appropriately. The public would also welcome a list of all those newspaper groups or agencies which were gifted with large sums of money by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif from the Baitul Maal or “discretionary fund”.
(3) The Press and Information Department is rotten to its bones. Hundreds of ‘dummy’ periodicals are handed out government advertisements worth millions of rupees. A few all-time newspaper favourites hog the ads while deserving independent ones are blithely ignored. Mr Memon should address this blatant discrimination. He should also bar the ‘dummies’ from the precincts of the PID.
(4) The Information Ministry also controls the duty-free newsprint ‘quota’ for newspapers. This system is grossly iniquitous because it is biased in favour of papers which toe the sitting government’s line. It is also a source of illegal profits from paper blackmarketing. Scrapped when Ms Bhutto was in power, the system was re-introduced by Mr Sharif as a lever to bribe the press. It must go.
(5) The odious Press and Publications Ordinance of 1963 (PPO), which had shackled the press for over 25 years, was abolished by the caretaker government in 1988. Mr Elahi Bux Soomro, who was then the Information Minister, won praise by promulgating an Ordinance (RPPPO) repealing the 1963-PPO and setting out freer terms of press conduct. Mr Soomro’s 1988-RPPPO was extended several times by the Benazir Bhutto government. Regrettably, however, it was never laid before parliament so that it could become an irreversible act of law. For obvious reasons, Mr Nawaz Sharif allowed it to lapse during his tenure. So, in its absence, we are once again stuck with the obnoxious 1963-PPO. Mr Memon should take a leaf from fellow caretaker Soomro’s book and promulgate the 1988-RPPPO once again. If he does that, the press will regard his gesture with affection and gratitude long after Mr Memon has departed from Islamabad.
(6) While Mr Memon is mulling over reinstating the 1988-RPPPO, he might also take a quick look at the disgusting West Pakistan Publication of Books Ordinance, 1969 (WPPOB). This Ordinance seeks to censor books before they are published. It is another unsavoury legacy of a martial law regime. It must also be rubbished. At any rate, some of its dubious purposes are more than adequately covered by the 1988-RPPPO.
Mr Memon may not realise it but the fact remains that he is sitting on top of an ugly volcano. The Information Ministry is the lynchpin on which the goodwill for prime minister Moeen Qureshi’s government revolves. Every day, millions of Pakistanis turn to PTV and PBC for confirmation of the caretaker government’s “neutrality” and “competence”. Every day they scour the waves for sounds and sights of Mr Qureshi’s “partiality”. Who’s producing or directing the Khabarnama? Who’s compering news-oriented programmes? Has Benazir Bhutto got more or less coverage than Nawaz Sharif? Did the camera pan Mr Sharif’s rally longer than Ms Bhutto’s? Why are the mullahs and other two-bit political parties getting so much TV attention? Why must viewers be forced to stomach the sight of dull politicians lining up obsequiously before the President, Prime Minister, Governors and Chief Ministers? And so on.
Mr Nisar Memon should get his act together quickly. Or he will rue the day he decided to join Mr Moeen Qureshi’s caretaker government as Information Minister.