SULAIMANI (ESTA) — The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) has decided to reorganize its media outlets as part of the framework of changes within the party, a senior official said on Wednesday.
The senior PUK official told Esta Media Network that the party would reorganize its media outlets that were established by money of people in Sulaimani and the PUK.
“A large amount of revenue of the province and the PUK was spent for a numerous media outlets and social media pages,” said the official, who spoke under condition of anonymity.
“They did not do their natural media duty, but were used for a low-level political war and to boost a political morality of saying too much,” he added.
He further said complaints about those media outlets were that “they said a lot but in terms of media and their natural media duties towards people, the presented the worst performance, except for the low level of their political, social and media messages, which had become the source of anxiety, hesitation and worrisome for people”.
Regarding the reorganization of media, the official said the aim was to end “media, political and social poison given to listeners through fake social media pages and several other media institutions”.
It just resulted in exhausting people and creating hesitance …. They didn’t do anything to change the livings of people whose revenue was turned to fuels to boost those media outlets,” he continued.
“Another goal is to put an end to the waste of the big finance spent in those media outlets,” he noted.
Regarding the iPLUS channel, the official said tens of millions of dollars were spent in the channel but it was never opened.
A security force entered the channel on Tuesday night and asked the staff to leave the office. A senior PUK official told Esta Media Network that the security force was from “the secretariat and was tasked with the duty”.
“The channel has been talked about for nearly three years and that it would be one of the professional channels and high-level Kurdish media, but after spending tens of millions dollars of Sulaimani’s people and the PUK, not only did it start broadcasting, but it became the center for creating low-level media and political messages for fake pages and other media,” the official said.
“The main purpose was to strike its fellow parties within the party, government and parliament,” he added.
“The lowest salary in the channel was $1,500. Many of the staff received $2,500 to $5,000. The monthly salary of the first person of the channel was more than $15,000,” the official noted.
“Tens of millions of dollars of people and PUK’s revenue were spent in a channel that had not even broadcast for a minute.”
The official reiterated that the PUK would “no longer” allow the waste of tens of millions of dollars of people in the province and the PUK to establish media outlets.
