ISLAMABAD: The government spent more than Rs 200 billion on its social safety initiatives mainly through Ehsaas Programme in 2021 that was marked with serious discrepancies and questions related to transparency in the funds spent in the social welfare sector.
The government spent over Rs 100 billion from January 1 to June 30 this year from the budget of previous fiscal year and another over Rs 100 billion from July 1 to December 31 from current fiscal year’s budget for social welfare initiatives, according to informed officials.
The government has also set a target of reaching out to 10 million deserving people under Ehsaas Kafaalat initiative with the planned half-yearly payment of Rs 12,000 to each identified beneficiary. This amount would be increased to Rs 13,000 from the coming January, government officials claim.
Over 6.4 million beneficiaries have received a total cash disbursement of Rs 79 billion during calendar year 2021, according to official data. This fiscal year’s federal budget saw an increase of 25 per cent, compared to previous financial year, in the budget of Ehsaas Programme—from Rs 200 billion to Rs 250 billion – an amount, which, as per the budget documents, was earmarked for Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) only.
This is because Ehsaas Programme, despite all the political hype surrounding it, is non-existent on paper while BISP was established through an act of Parliament.
Additionally, Rs 120 billion has been allocated for Ehsaas Ration Programme to provide subsidised flour, oil and pulses to 20 million deserving 20 million households but this programme is expected to be launched in January 2022.
In November 2021, the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) conducted a special audit of the Covid-19 package, which identified irregular payments by the BISP of Rs 1.84 billion to a total of 153,369 individuals comprising of 86,211 government employees/pensioners and 67,158 spouses of government employees/pensioners, as Covid cash transfers, in financial year 2019-20. The publication of this report was a requirement of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
In response to the audit observation, the BISP stated that Nadra (National Database and Registration Authority) was entrusted with the task to run profiling on the basis of received data to exclude government servants under EECTP (Ehsaas Emergency Cash Transfer Programme).
“With the help of latest employee’s data shared by audit, the BISP will not only recover the paid amount but also initiate legal proceeding against these employees following the steps taken earlier,” the BISP said.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2021
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