The Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) has ‘exposed’ irregularities in the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), saying that the administration is helpless in front of ‘charitable’ government employees and officials.
According to the audit report 2020-21, so far no recovery has been made from government employees and officers who have been receiving money in the name of deserving people.
The administration recovered Rs900,000 from its officers alone as against Rs23.13 billion while the AGP directed the BISP to recover the amount taken by the government employees.
The report said that during the cash transfer scrutiny in financial year 2019-20, it was observed that under the unconditional cash transfer programme, 55,383 government employees, pensioners and their families from grades 1 to 20 continued to receive money regularly and unconditionally.
Under the cash transfer programme, these government employees and their families received Rs6.80 billion which they continued to receive till June 2019.
According to the report, 8,500 officers and employees received the money directly from the beneficiaries themselves, while 46,000 employees continued to receive through their spouses.
The report said that four judges themselves received a total of Rs690,000 from the BISP while eight officers of Grade 20 received Rs831,000 in their name and that of their family members, 61 officers of Grade 19 received Rs7.4 million and 83 officers of Grade 18 received more than Rs10 million directly or their families.
Similarly, 302 gazetted and non-gazetted officers of Grade 17 received a total of Rs30.5 million as beneficiaries while more than 1,500 employees of Grade 16 got more than Rs190 million.
According to the report, employees of grades 1 to 15 received a total of Rs53.60 billion while 2,000 officers of grades 16 to 20 received more than Rs210 million from the BISP.
According to the report, during the audit, it was revealed that 140,448 more government employees were receiving money from the BISP in the form of beneficiaries who were blocked, of which, 215 officers turned out to be BISP’s own employees. While clearing their hands on the cash transfer programme, they received Rs20 million while the other 140,000 employees received Rs16.33 billion and the BISP has been paying these employees for the last 10 years.
According to the report, the highest number of 56,000 employees in Sindh got Rs6.74 billion under the cash transfer programme.
Similarly, 30,000 employees of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa received Rs3.62 billion, 21,000 employees of Punjab got Rs2.46 billion, while 19,000 government employees of Balochistan received Rs2.17 billion, 1,700 employees of Azad Kashmir received Rs190 million, 5,000 employees of KP integrated tribal areas received Rs550 million while employees of Gilgit-Baltistan received Rs570 million from the BISP.
The report said that the BISP management recovered Rs966,000 from 22 employees who benefited from the cash programme while the recovery was being made from the remaining 193 employees through HR while the audit did not provide any figures to the authorities.
The AGP recommended an inquiry into all these matters, directing to ensure recovery and submit the information.
