ISLAMABAD: Majority of officers working in the Ministry of Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety (PASS) comprises deputationists but there is no criterion for deputation appointments in the ministry.
These details emerged, Wednesday, during a briefing given by the officials of PASS Ministry to the National Assembly Standing Committee on Poverty Alleviation and Social Safety.
The NA panel sought from the ministry “biodata of all deputationists” appointed in the ministry and its attached departments—in the next meeting.
Saira Bano from Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) presided over the panel’s meeting. Amidst stalled progress on the recovery of cash grant unlawfully received from Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) by certain government officials, the NA panel was briefed that the details of all of those government officials who received cash from BISP fraudulently were sent to Establishment Division for disciplinary action against them — and their cases were forwarded to Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for criminal proceedings. The panel asked the ministry to expedite the matter and ensure action against all those who received unauthorised financial support from BISP.
In February last year, BISP announced to have removed another 29,961 individuals from its list of beneficiaries who were provided financial assistance, bringing the total number of individuals removed from BISP beneficiaries list to 850,126 — from December 2019 till last year.
According to the data issued by BISP then, 15,326 pensioners, 9,991 “high-income” individuals, 4,371 employees of autonomous agencies and 273 government employees were removed from the BISP’s list of beneficiaries.
In December 2019, the total number of BISP beneficiaries was 5.9 million out of which 820,165 beneficiaries were declared ineligible and removed from BISP’s list which included 14,730 government employees including 2,543 gazetted officers (Grade 17 to 21).
The BISP’s data suggested that out of these 820,165 individuals, 153,302 were those who travelled abroad once in their lifetime; 195,364 were those whose spouses travelled abroad once; 10,476 beneficiaries travelled abroad more than once; 166,319 beneficiaries were those whose spouses travelled abroad more than once; 692 beneficiaries had one or more vehicles registered in their names; 43,746 beneficiaries were those whose spouses had one or more vehicles registered in their names; 24,546 were those whose average monthly telephone bill was 1,000 rupees or more; 115,767 beneficiaries were those whose spouses average monthly telephone bill was Rs 1,000 or more; 666 beneficiaries applied passports through executive passport offices; 580 beneficiaries were those whose spouses applied for passports through executive passport offices; 36,970 beneficiaries were those whose three or more family members got their computerised national identity cards (CNICs) under executive category; 14,730 beneficiaries were government employees and 127,826 beneficiaries were those whose spouses were government employees.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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