KARACHI: An accountability court reissued on Wednesday warrants for the arrest of former Sindh information minister Sharjeel Inam Memon and others in a corruption reference.

The former minister with the then provincial information secretary Zulfiqar Ali Shalwani, deputy directors Anita Baloch, Mansoor Ahmed Rajput and Mohammed Yousuf Kaboro and others have been bool(ed for allegedly committing corruption to the tune of Rs5 billion in awarding government advertisements in electronic media during 2013 to 2015.

The National Accountability Bureau in a reference, filed earlier this month, stated that the investi-gations revealed that an amount of Rs5,766,479,766 was paid to seven advertisement companies in violation of the Sindh Public Procurement Rules 2010.

It maintained that the Evernew Concepts (Pvt) Ltd was paid over Rs4.15bn, Orient Communication over Rs320 million, Adarts Karachi over Rs317m, Connect Marketing over Rs310m, Value Added Marketing over Rs205m, Xnine Communications over R s374m and Insync Advertisement was paid over Rs83m.

Judge Saad Qureshi of the Accountability Court-IV reissued non-bailable warrants for the arrest of Mr Memon, Ms Baloch and the then section officer information Altaf Hussain Memon till Nov 5.

The others suspects are on interim pre-arrest bail.