Press Gallery
MD’s got far more than 3 percent share of PTV going bankrupt’
PTV’s three per cent formula
Saeed Minhas
Islamabad: Another routine day consumed by the parliamentarians to discuss nothing but personal anomalies and army bashing to ensure that time earmarked for the budgetary discussions is consumed and their per diems is ensured.
As usual if someone from PML (N) went all out to criticize the government over defence allocations than someone from treasury benches including the Que leaguers would stand up and shower whatever praises he/she can recall to mind. It is not astonishing to assume from the day budgetary debate was opened by the leader of opposition that it’s not federal budget its only defence budget which was presented by the finance minister.
Perhaps to help our legislators with facts and figures we found someone holding a huge pile of files for almost past one week sitting in the slots allotted to federal secretaries. It certainly was neither the finance secretary nor the FBR chairman; it was someone coming from ministry of information.
When to mitigate our curiosity we invited him for a cup of tea in newly renovated cafeteria, and managed to look at the files, he was carrying nothing but a mega scam in the making. It was all about our state run media, where according to our new found mole everything has been thrown to the dogs and it will just be one of those state enterprises which would soon join the white elephants like Railways, Wapda or many other such miserable and financial bankrupt stories.
I remember when I last wrote a piece “state owned media has become a den” because of financial, moral and professional bankruptcy ruling the roast there, I was bombarded with the information from hubbies regarding the top men running these state-run organizations these days. After the infamous hiring and eventually firing incident of Dr Shahid Masood from PTV who does not know that who has the real hiring/firing powers for the state run media (including radio Pakistan and APP) and it certainly is not the prerogative of the sitting information minister but its comes from the offices of hill top. If someone from Haqqani network is serving the Radio then a qualified messenger has been given the state news agency but what matters most was the PTV where a blue-eyed of the hill top has landed with some unique package which not only includes a handsome salary but also a share in the government revenues.
If the files are to be trusted, carried by this God-forsaken bureaucrat, then the share from state run television for the fresh Managing Director of PTV is no less than three per cent of the revenues falling in the lap of state TV. And strangely enough there is no mention is that document that this three per cent would be draw-able only on those revenues which the new MD would generate through his own efforts or the one which is already coming there. To this our mole confirmed that it means that whatever revenue comes to PTV will automatically have the share of the new MD. If nothing else we can only envy at this unique and perhaps the first such hiring in the history of state departments and hope finance minister, if information minister does not have the authority to do that, can make it mandatory for all other MDs of the state run organizations.
The documents does not end there it shows that how new MD has silenced the biggest critics of any new boss; i.e. the union guys by giving them a good share in the hiring of more than 270 workers on higher than normal packages and not only that in some cases more than 100 per cent raise but generally 45 per cent have been given to the existing unionized staff just to make sure that this front remains out of the way of three per cent deal. Since the incumbent came just before the cricket World Cup saga, therefore, the estimated amount revealed in those documents tells us that he has already bagged more than three years of his salaries in just one month without doing anything else but accepting this lucrative offer of the big boss to join PTV.
Outsourcing of the PTV Dramas–which once used to be the show stoppers across the region–is the single source which if probed properly can unearth the whole racket which is trying to sell the good name of Mr. Aslam Azhar for making big bucks. It might also lead us to find out that how certain private production houses (connected to certain PTV former and current employees) are making about 1000 per cent profits by ‘presenting’ their ‘production’ skills to the members of this racket. If previous MD Arshad Khan could hardly do anything in this regard due to certain restrictions than let’s hope that the new MD known as YBM who managed (during his first term here) to build a multimillion Chaghi news studio–where many have fallen sick because of poor ventilation–might be able to fix it with his three per cent formula.
Our mole just could not hold it when he said that let me assure you all that only if one official (now retired) holding the office of deputy managing director is probed for his wonderful works than we might come to know that how a former MNA, known to be the room-mate of our former information minister has managed to help his cousins develop a car show room in Dubai. Certainly another case of rages to riches.
If morality is something to write about our state television than ask the infamous Agha Ji who had to face numerous official complaints against him but it remains a fact that he managed to escape each and every time. It is easy to say that one big ideologically driven media house-owner is protecting the son of a revolutionary writer and poet but once you dig deep you will find there is more to it than what meets the eyes.
The result is that a state media organization which had just crept out of heavy loans and had shown a profit of some sorts, has gone under debt and now to pay the revised salaries, medical bills, and even operational things, PTV has gone back with a begging bowl to the banks. And you won’t believe that getting a loan for the State Enterprise from private banks is another scam in itself, on which we will shed some light some other time to tell you how three per cent formula works there.
After this loot sale of jobs and favourtism at the cost of public exchequer, I strongly believe that state media, in any case is becoming a burden on national exchequer and has miserably failed in fulfilling any of its role to educate, inform and entertain the people. Instead of repeating the state banquets and visits, what will happen if we give live coverage to various commissions’s probing various national issues ranging from target killings in Karachi, to accusations of murders in Balochistan? Certainly nothing because when MQM, PPP, Jamaat-e-Islami, ANP and even Biharis will appear in front of anyone employed to fill the chairman’s seat, it will expose all of them not for the worst but for the betterment of the masses and the society. Therefore, whether Premier can do anything to correct any of the above mentioned things due to one or many other reasons, at last he can order the concerned ministries and the PTV to cover all such commissions or parliamentary committee live because it will not only fulfill the purpose of educating the people, informing the people but since our private TV anchors have proven that talking remains the best selling product why not market such interesting and absorbing shows where supposedly facts will be presented by all sides and where chairman will be required to write or say something for the record. Now the million dollar question remains whether Premier Gilani and his fully involved ministers or ministries want this that people should know that who created sugar, flour or stock exchange crisis or who made how many millions and why Railways or PIA is not working, what happened in OBL case or Mehran base incident and why PTV or Radio Pakistan has such a high rate of morality-related applications? Let’s hope and sit tight, because if they don’t than someone will.