“The APNS expresses its grave concern over the non-payment of advertisement dues by the Federal and provincial governments despite various assurances by the respective governments.
Mr. Sarmad Ali, Secretary General, APNS has stated that the meeting of the Executive Committee held on Monday chaired by the President, APNS, Mrs. Nazafreen Saigol Lakhani has noted that the Federal and provincial governments have not paid the dues related to display, SPL and non-budgeted advertisements which has caused serious liquidity crisis for newspapers to meet their expenses.
The members of the Executive Committee strongly urged upon the Prime Minister of Pakistan and Chief Ministers of the provinces to advise the concerned departments to release the payment at the earliest.
The APNS in a resolution, welcomed and congratulated Ms. Shahera Shahid on her appointment as Secretary Information for the second time and hoped that during her tenure, the problems faced by the print media, would be addressed and the relations between the APNS and the Ministry would be further strengthened.
In another resolution, the APNS strongly condemned the brutal murder of Mr. Jan Muhammad Mehr, senior journalist, Sukkur Bureau Chief of Kawish Group and urged upon the IG Police, Sindh to expedite the arrest of the culprits who are at large for three months.
The members expressed their profound grief over the killing of innocent people including journalists, children and women in Gaza by the Israeli forces and offered fateha for the martyrs.
The following attended the meeting :
Nazafreen Saigol Lakhani, President, Sarmad Ali, Secretary General, Shahab Zuberi, Finance Secretary, Bilal Farooqui (Daily Aghaz), Mohsin Bilal (Daily Ausaf), Khalid Mahmood (Weekly Family), Muhammad Younus Mehar (Daily Halchal), Kazi Asad Abid (Daily Ibrat), Syed Akbar Tahir (Daily Jasarat), Mushtaq Ahmed Qureshi (Monthly Naey Ufaq), Zahida Abbasi (Daily Nau Sijj), Salman Qureshi (Monthly Naya Rukh) and Faisal Zahid Malik (Daily Pakistan Observer).
