EDITORIAL: In sheer deference to the late Benazir Bhutto, the then Pakistan People’s Party Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani installed in 2008 the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), wishing it to cushion the adverse impacts of food, fuel and financial crisis on the poor, and expecting that over a period of time it would meet the redistributive goals of the country by providing a minimum income support package to the chronically poor and those who are more likely to be negatively affected by future economic shocks.
Of course it hasn’t lifted millions of Pakistanis out of poverty and helplessness, but it did come to rescue a very large segment of national population. It was a noble gesture on the part of the then PPP government, and given its essentiality it continues to be in operation — irrespective of regime and name changes.
But the thief was always there at the corner of the street. And as expected, the beneficiaries’ poverty and their pressing needs helped the thief steal what the BISP was giving them on a regular basis. Let’s describe this thief as “the commission mafia”, which came into existence from day one, and in as many forms as it found it to be necessary to be in certain positions to defeat the law and guardians of the BISP. Of these positions, two were, and remain so, more productive for the “mafia commission”. In the past, the BISP was infected with its managers’ personal inductions.
Not only were a very large number of its employees registered as poor and needy quite a few of them discovered that their spouses too were eligible for the BISP support. According to a media report, in 2020 cases against 2,000 government employees who benefited from the BISP benevolence were sent to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA). They were among some 140,000 government employees and their spouses, and beneficiaries included employees of all grades.
The other form of mafia that is eating into the fabric of the Benazir Income Support Programme is the commission that is found to be involved in malpractices and illegal deductions from the BISP beneficiaries at the points of sale (POS) and automated teller machines (ATMs).
This mafia controls the distribution points by exacting its share which the beneficiaries find unavoidable and they readily pay, fearing the alternative to it may be denial of the meagre amount he or she is likely to get. The BISP management seems to have gone after the mafia at POS systems now, as in Punjab region it has blocked 312 points of sale and put behind bars 19 agents. Against some other the reports have been filed with relevant police stations, and one case was referred to the FIA Cybercrime Circle, Lahore.
And in pursuance of a Lahore High Court order, the BISP has also taken up with Habib Bank Limited the issue of non-availability of biometric-enabled ATMs. The court order followed the site of long queues of female beneficiaries outside the ATM of HBL main branch in Multan region where the ATMs are expected to facilitate payments to about 82,000 beneficiaries.
The question for how long the ATM-generated inability has been prevalent has no clear answer. But we do know that distribution of funds to the BISP beneficiaries has been a lingering challenge. If at long last the BISP managers have woken up now and owned up lethargic handling of the mafia-controlled distribution of BISP funds to the poor and needy we wish them success.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023