A bill has been presented to parliament and placed on agenda for coming Tuesday for deliberation over forming a media commission to regulate all formats and mediums of news media outlets.
The bill was presented to parliament by Ungoofaaru constituency lawmaker Jaufar Dawood.
Speaking about the bill, Progressive Party of Maldives' Parliamentary Group leader and Vilimale' constituency lawmaker Ahmed Nihan Hussain Manik stated the a media commission bill to regulate all types of media has been presented to parliament and the upcoming days would involve discussion and evaluation of the bill.
However details of the bill was not disclosed by the PPM PG leader.
Currently two separate commissions related to media has been established. Broadcasting Commission and Maldives Media Council (MMC) were established to regulate the local media outlets with the former handling TV and radio stations while MMC policed online and print media outlets.
However due to the incurring high expenses of operating two separate commissions, state and lawmakers had continuously hinted on merging the two commissions into one and regulate every media type under one body.
Recently PPM's deputy leader Riyaz Rasheed had criticized the financial committee of parliament citing it was unnecessary to operate two regulatory bodies on separate administrations which handle the same field of work.
Which was responded by PPM PG leader Nihan addressing a bill was in works of formulating a unified commission regulating the media wholly.
