Weeks after the government struck over 800,000 names off Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) database, a report revealed on Wednesday that several high-rank officials of federal and provincial governments were also the beneficiaries of the poverty reduction initiative.
According to a private media house, amongst the 820,165 names removed from the list, over 2000 individuals were working in different government offices.
According to details overall 2543 government officials belonging to Grade-17 till Grade-21 were receiving income support tri-monthly handouts.
Some officers were receiving money in the name of their wives and other members of families, which were registered on the list.
Balochistan is the province with maximum numbers of government officials i.e. 741, who were receiving handouts of the income support programme.
Sindh had 342 government officers of Grade-18 who were registered as eligible persons for the income support programme.
Three government officers of Grade-21 were among the list of the beneficiaries of the social protection programme.
59 government officers of Grade-20 and 429 Grade-19 officers were enlisted as beneficiaries of the BISP. Six officers of the Benazir Income Support Programme were also among the people getting these handouts for poor, according to the details.
Moreover, 1240 government officers of Grade-17 were also getting the benefit from the social protection scheme.
Earlier, Dr. Sania Nishtar in her press conference had revealed that out of over 800,000 beneficiaries removed from the program, more than 140,000 were those who or their spouses were government employees.
She had announced that “those having ownership of a car or paying telephone bills up to Rs1000 will be declared ineligible for the program’s registration”.
