Committee being set up to monitor TV channels

KABUL and Islamic Affairs is working to set up a committee to monitor private TV channels airing programmes “against Islamic teachings”, the minister said on Sunday.

“In addition to good programmes, some private TV channels have been broadcasting vulgar programmes which are against Islamic teachings and the Afghan culture,” the Hajj and Islamic Affairs Minister Yousaf Niazai, told a news conference in Kabul.

He said the ministry had approached imams several times to raise the issue during sermons in mosques, but it did not work.

Therefore, he said, the ministry was working on the formation of a special committee to monitor such programmes.

The minister also dismissed media reports, which said the ministry had failed to use its budget. Niazai said only 500,000 afghanis ($10,967) of the ministry’s budget for last year could not be used.

Another amount of $298,000 which was meant for establishing a camp for Afghan pilgrims in Kabul City could not be utilised due to some problems, he said, without going into details.

The spokesman for the Ministry of Finance, Aziz Shams, on the other hand said the Ministry of Hajj and Religious Affairs had spent about 33 percent of its developmental budget.

frm/ma

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