'Deserving beneficiaries to stay on BISP list'

FIA sends names of 2,037 govt officers to its zonal offices in four provinces, G-B for ‘swift action’

ISLAMABAD: Amid fear that action against ineligible BISP beneficiaries may result in exclusion of eligible ones, State Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ali Muhammad Khan on Friday assured the National Assembly that no deserving beneficiary would be excluded from the programme.

Responding to queries during the question hour, the state minister said, “I assure the house that no deserving beneficiary would be excluded from the list of BISP beneficiaries.”

On a point raised by a Pakistan Peoples Party legislator that the deserving people who had been sent on Umrah and Hajj by philanthropists had been excluded from the BISP beneficiaries’ list, the state minister said the issue had been discussed with the BISP chairperson and these people would not be excluded from the list.
He clarified that BISP was not being renamed.

Names of some govt officials who benefitted from BISP unearthed

He said the government had started a comprehensive Ehsaas Kafaalat Programme and enhanced its allocations to Rs190 billion from Rs100 billion. “Under this initiative, several programmes are being launched for the poor segments of the society.”

FIA action
The Federal Investigation Agency on Friday initiated action against 2,037 government officers who got themselves or their spouse illegally enrolled as BISP beneficiaries.

The agency sent the list of names of government officers from grades 17 to 22 to its zonal offices in Sindh, Punjab, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan as well as Gilgit-Baltistan with directives to initiate swift action.

According to sources, investigation against the ineligible BISP beneficiaries would be conducted in two phases.

In the first phase, action would be taken against those officers who are benefiting directly from the BISP, while in the second, the BISP officials providing benefit to the officers would face the music.

Further, the sources said apart from 2,037 government officers, the FIA has decided to take action against 140,000 more civil servants.

For the purpose, the FIA has asked the National Database and Registration Authority to provide data regarding family tree, biometric and profession details of the civil servants.