ISLAMABAD: State Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb has said that the government has completed process of constituting the Wage Board after a hiatus of 17 years during which the journalists remained deprived of their rights.
Addressing a ceremony – held in connection to the notification for the wage board – at the National Press Club on Wednesday, the minister said that the difficulties faced by the journalist community had been overcome though collective efforts.
The minister said that PFUJ President Afzal Butt and his team had played a significant role in this regard.
Marriyum said that she was sorry to note that the media was trying to “mute” the part of the conversation of former prime minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday in which he had talked about respect of the vote notwithstanding the fact that he had made Pakistan a nuclear power, built infrastructure and network of roads and brought the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) to the country. Nawaz Sharif, she said, had invariably talked about the sanctity and ascendency of the law and constitution.
She said that whatever had been happening during the last 17 years and the traditions that were set, were absolutely wrong.
The minister said that the government by constituting the wage board had not done any favour to the journalists but given them their due right. Journalists, she said, were such a segment of the society who kept democracy going through the power of their pen and had always stood with it through thick and thin, and the ups and downs that it had to endure.
She said that she was well aware of the difficulties that the working journalists faced during the discharge of their professional assignments. She said that it was the good luck of the prime minister, the government and her that the notification of wage board was issued during the tenure of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government. The real work in that regard was still to be done and hopefully it would be accomplished within the tenure of the government, she said, adding that the step had reinforced media-government relations that existed before it.
Marriyum said that the 8th wage board would provide economic security to the journalist community solving their problems pertaining to household and education. She thanked the newspaper owners for their support in that regard.
She said that the government was also working on the bill regarding security and safety of the journalists. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting had also played a significant role in the finalization of the wage board and its approval from the cabinet, she added.
The minister informed the audience that she would visit Sindh and Balochistan shortly.
Marriyum said that constitution delineated the powers and functions of the state institutions and if all of them worked within their stipulated spheres it would become a source of strength for all.
The minister, while handing over the notification of the wage board to the leadership of journalists, said that she would never forget the love and respect that she was given and also expressed her gratitude to them.
PFUJ President Afzal Butt, National Press Club president, IIUJ president and other representative bodies of journalists thanked Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbassi, federal ministers and Minister of State for Information Marriyum Aurangzeb for issuing the notification of wage board. The ceremony was attended by the representatives of the media bodies and a large number of journalists.
Published in Daily Times, April 19th 2018.
