The Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) has convened its board's meeting on February 13, after a lapse of over a year to get approval for the budget and expenditures. Shabbir Ahmad, Secretary BISP, told Business Recorder on Friday, that notices for the board meeting had been issued to members and agenda for it had also been prepared. "The most important thing for us is to get approval of last year's expenditures and this year's budget for the programme," he said.
The last meeting of the board was held in December last year in which some important decisions like renewal of contracts with commercial banks were made. All important decisions about the programme were taken by the board and nothing could be done without approval of the board, he clarified. The board also allows constituting some committees to look after different ongoing programmes.
"We will request the board to allow formation of some committees to look after different programmes as it is difficult to convene a board meeting separately for each and everything," he said. According to the BISP Act 2010, the board should consist of not less than nine and not more than 11 members, including chairperson of the programme. Under the act, the board is required to meet after every quarter and give approval to important policies, expenditure and budget for the next quarter.
"The board shall meet at least four times in a year and a special meeting of the board may be convened by the chairperson or on the request of five members at any time by giving a reasonable notice of such a meeting," the Act says. The Act also says that the board is empowered to approve budget of the programme prepared by the management and take decisions on the financial aspects of the programme submitted by the management for board's consideration.
The secretary, however, said that all BISP projects were running smoothly, even without a chairperson and board meeting. "We have disbursed 42 billion rupees among the beneficiaries in the first two quarters of the financial year and all other targets have been achieved so far," he said. Ahmad said that almost all members of the board were new; therefore they would be briefed about different projects being run by the programme in the first meeting.
"We are not going to give any proposals to the board members in the first meeting to improve the programme's functions," he said, adding that later BISP management would also give some proposals to board members to improve its functioning. The secretary said BISP management would get approval of the board in the first meeting regarding inclusion of additional banks for the disbursement of funds to the beneficiaries across Pakistan.
Meanwhile, the fourth and fifth quarterly review released by International Monetary Fund (IMF) in December last year expressed satisfaction over the performance of programme. In 2014-15, the quarterly stipends paid through the BISP increased by 25 percent to Rs 4,500 to address poverty and inequality concerns and protect the most vulnerable from the impact of energy price adjustments and fiscal consolidation, the IMF staff review maintained. "Going forward, coverage of the BISP is expected to reach around 4.8 million beneficiaries by end-2014 and 5.3 million by end-June 2015," the IMF review said.
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