Govt to hold inquiry after Maryam's admission of ads controlling

ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry on Wednesday claimed that PML-N Vice President Maryam Nawaz doled out Rs18bn from national kitty to reward blue-eyed journalists and some media channels during their tenure, ARY News reported.

Addressing a press conference flanked by Federal Minister for Energy Hammad Azhar, Fawad Chaudhry said that Maryam Nawaz had admitted to controlling the advertisements of some television channels.

Chaudhry claimed that the party media cell that Maryam oversaw at the Prime Minister’s House used approximately Rs10 billion from the federal government’s reserves.

“With approval of the party’s media cell, supervised by Maryam Nawaz, Rs 9.62 bn were utilized for funding of federal government (advertisements), while around Rs 10 billion for Punjab government,” he claimed.

The federal minister said advertisements for the federal and provincial governments were managed by the ‘notorious media cell’ set up by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) to reward specific journalists.

Initially, 15 members were made part of the cell and later Rs 20 million were allocated for additional recruitment and was mandated to run targeted media campaigns, he added.

A video clip of Maryam’s news conference was also screened during Chaudhry’s press conference. Fawad Chaudhry announced that government had decided to conduct a inquiry into the whole affair.

Read: MARYAM NAWAZ ADMITS IT’S HER VOICE IN VIRAL AUDIO

Earlier today, Daughter of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) vice president Maryam Nawaz has admitted that the leaked audio of her instructing media team not to give advertisement to few channels is real.

Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, Maryam Nawaz said: “Audio attributed to her is real and she will not say that it is edited.”

Referring to the alleged leaked audio of former CJP Justice retired Saqib Nisar, Maryam  said that as soon as the audio came out, propaganda regarding the clip began to prove that the clip was doctored despite the fact that a very renowned American company did the forensic analysis of the clip.