Daily Times

Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry would do well to think before speaking in Parliament. Particularly when addressing the Chairman of the Senate. And given that everyone there is an elected representative — there can never be any need to talk of who has won the popular vote and who has not. The priority must remain serving the citizenry. Not wasting time over artificial notions of hierarchy.

Equally important for a minister committed to cracking down on the phenomenon of fake news is attributing sources for (presumably) fact-checked figures. Sadly, Chaudhry appeared to be misinformed when he bandied around the seemingly magic figure of Rs42 trillion; an amount the federal minister insists represents the sum total of budget allocations that have been directed to Balochistan over the last decade.

Yet he failed to explain how he reached this number. Fortunately, others have stepped in; namely, journalists from that province and elsewhere across the country. Online English-language newspaper Balochistan Voices revised this down to Rs1.4 trillion. While others pointed out that Pakistan’s entire budget over the last 10 years has not exceeded Rs36.06 trillion; with national debt currently standing at around Rs12.6 trillion. Thereby underscoring a rather lackadaisical approach to money trails now that the PTI is in power. In addition, it undermines the Information Minister’s efforts to remind the citizenry that taking to social media to spread fake news is a prosecutable offence under the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA).

Lastly, when naming and shaming certain Senators as proponents of “economic terrorism”, Mr Chaudhry needs to keep two things in mind. Firstly, that if concrete evidence is in hand then the courts should be approached. Otherwise it is slander. Secondly, he himself served in at least one of the governments he implicated in financial fraud; inadvertently putting back on the table rightful notions of collective responsibility.

We, here at Daily Times, therefore hope that the Information Minister develops sooner rather than later a healthy relationship with Parliament to efficiently discharge his important duties.  *

Published in Daily Times, November 17^th 2018.