ISLAMABAD, Nov 20: Information Minister Sherry Rehman informed the National Assembly on Thursday that the government had ordered an inquiry into alleged squandering of millions of rupees by the previous government on advertisement about the Khushal Pakistan Programme.

Replying to Belum Hasnain’s question, the minister said that the Shaukat Aziz government had spent over Rs344 million on projecting the KPP through newspapers and electronic media advertisements over a period of three years.

She said the government released Rs240 million for print media ads and an amount of Rs80 million was yet to be settled with advertising agencies.

Similarly, she said, Rs104.2 million was given to three advertisement agencies for advertisements on 26 TV channels.

Ms Rehman said that some officials of the Prime Minister’s secretariat and Ministry of Finance were involved in the scam. She said the inquiry report would be presented in the house and those who had squandered money would be exposed.

She said if any influential persons found involved in the scam would be pursued.

“The opposition and civil society had repeatedly expressed concerns over reports of corruption in the KPP as there were glaring gaps in the advertisement budget of the projects. The figures provided to us regarding release of funds failed to match the expenditure made.”

Replying to another question, Ms Rehman said there was no ban on Indian news channels in Pakistan.

However, she said, the channels should apply to Pemra for grant of landing rights and so far no application had been made.