Pakistan’s Supreme Court made public a list of journalists and others who received payments of nearly Rs 178 million from the secret fund of the country’s Information Ministry.
The court had sought details of payments from the fund after taking up a petition filed by two journalists seeking the formation of a commission to ensure accountability in the media.
After receiving details, a three-judge bench yesterday directed that one list of 282 payments should be posted on the Supreme Court’s website.
The Information Ministry submitted another list of 174 payments worth Rs 86.8 million that it asked the apex court to keep secret.
The bench indicated it would decide whether this list too would be made public after getting the opinion of an official of the Auditor General of Pakistan at the next hearing on April 25.
The list of payments made public contains items that range from the innocuous -- financial aid provided to widows of journalists -- to controversial, such as huge sums given to reporters for “special assignments”.
Muhammad Saleh Zaafir, a journalist of the Jang media group who is known to be close to the security establishment, received three payments totalling Rs 500,000 for “special assignments” last year.
The payments from the “Special Publicity Fund” included financial assistance to journalists across the country, hotel bills of persons like officials of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, payments to publishers of books, payment of salaries to research analysts of the Information Ministry, payments for organising media workshops, bills for dinners hosted by the Information Minister and visa fees and travel expenses for journalists accompanying the Prime Minister on foreign trips.
A payment of Rs 37 million was made to an advertisement agency for a media campaign titled ‘Benazir Bhutto song’ while several payments were made in 2011 for “mobilising” the media to report on the floods in Sindh province.
During the hearing, Justice Jawwad Khwaja said the disbursement of even a single rupee should not be kept secret.
Raja Aamir, the lawyer for the Information Ministry, informed the court that a complete audit had not been conducted and the two lists contained payments made since July 2011.
Director Tahir Hussain Khan of the Information Ministry informed the court that funds were also spent on the directives of the Inter-Services Public Relations and Inter-Services Intelligence.