Four government officers named in the list of officers who had added their names to the list of beneficiaries of the Benazir Income Support Programme were dismissed on Saturday.
The officers had added their names and the names of their wives to the list and had been taking money from the programme. The BISP is a federally-funded poverty reduction programme. It is working to lift people out of poverty.
The officers dismissed include assistant directors of the programme in Dera Ismail Khan, Muhammad Nauman and Shafiullah, and assistant directors of the programme in Abbottabad, Sabeel Khan and Fazzle Amin.
Dr Sania Nishtar, the head of the BISP, tweeted that Rs440,196 has been recovered from them as a part of the Ehsaas Integrity and Ant-Corruption Drive.
4 grade 17 BISP officers dismissed from service on charges of corruption & misconduct as they got their wives enrolled as BISP beneficiaries fraudulently, using their position in BISP. Rs 440,196 has been recovered as part of #Ehsaas Integrity & anti corruption drive pic.twitter.com/pdJwBLgaJo
— Sania Nishtar (@SaniaNishtar) January 18, 2020
She also confirmed that the PPP’s central information secretary, Nafisa Shah was not on the list.
On January 8, Dr Nishtar had confirmed that 2,543 officers of Grades 14 to 17 had included their names and those of their spouses in the list.
The most cases were reported in Sindh, where 1,122 officers added their own names. In Balochistan, 741 officers included their names to the list, while 403 did it in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 137 in Punjab.
Addressing the media after her visit to the BISP office in Karachi’s Malir on Saturday, she said that policies and programmes should be made to benefit the under-privileged.
“We have increased the allowance to Rs6,000 and it will be paid in three installments, each of Rs2,000,” Dr Nishtar said. “The money will be transferred into bank accounts and an SMS service will also be launched by the end of the month,” she said.
She added that the government is equipping the programme to make it corruption-free.
