Misuse of welfare fund

The continued detection of undeserving and dishonest beneficiaries of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) confirms that the PTI-led government is taking steps to eradicate corruption. Under the Ehsaas Governance Plan, the government is continuing with the process of rectifying BISP data. All efforts to put our own house in order should be welcomed, especially when the country has slipped four places in the Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index. This might or might not be the reality, but even a negative perception can do a lot of harm to the country’s image, particularly at a time when the nation’s economy is in trouble and the country is facing energy shortages. This might keep potential investors away. The flight down in the corruption perception might be a deliberate attempt to tarnish the country’s image, so it is absolutely necessary to take measures to cut bad practices. Corrective steps will help improve the country’s image.

So far 849,126 names have been removed from the list of BISP recipients. Another 29,961 illegal beneficiaries have been deleted from the list. They are 15,326 pensioners, 273 government employees, 9,991 high income people, and 4,371 employees of autonomous entities. Before this, 820,165 illegal beneficiaries had been eliminated from the BISP list. Among them were 14,730 government employees. The country’s top investigation agency probed the scam and it filed cases against 24 government officials for pocketing money from the social welfare scheme, with no qualms of conscience. The programme is meant to provide financial assistance to the poorest of the poor. Of these illegal well-off beneficiaries, 10,476 have travelled abroad more than once and spouses of 166,319 unlawful beneficiaries too went to foreign countries more than once.

A difficult word, schlemiel, can properly describe how corruption affects the whole society and puts a brake on a country’s progress. A schlemiel is a fellow who climbs to the top of the ladder with a bucket of paint and then drops it. A schlimazel, by the way, is a guy on whose head the bucket falls.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 7^th, 2021.

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