Non-payment of funds: BISP orders inquiry into Swat protests

Chairperson Farzana Raja directs secretary to take up matter with postal ministry.

The Benazir Income Support Programme has taken serious notice of a news item about a protest by beneficiaries in Swat against post office officials for withholding their monthly installments released by the BISP.

According to a press release issued on Sunday, BISP chairperson Farzana Raja has directed the BISP secretary and the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa director general to inquire into the matter and submit a report to her immediately over the news item published in The Express Tribune on March 24, 2012.

Raja further directed the BISP secretary to take up the matter with the postal ministry for a transparent departmental inquiry to fix responsibility and take the offenders to task.

According to the report, the protestors were demanding a new payment system in lieu of the current one. The press release also pointed out that the protesters were surprisingly all shown as men despite the fact that BISP beneficiaries are women only.

The report stated that BISP beneficiaries in Swat staged a protest against post office officials for withholding their monthly installments despite the allocation of funds and appealed to the government to initiate an inquiry.

“The BISP would like to bring to record that transparency is the hallmark of its operations, winning credibility for BISP both at national level and among the international financial institutions and donor agencies,” the press release stated. It is because of such incidents and reports of malpractices that BISP has already started introducing alternative payment mechanisms, it added.

The press release stated that under the new technology based and transparent system, human involvement in the payment process will be reduced to the minimum possible level and monthly payments would be made through the Benazir Smart Card/Debit Cards.

Distribution of these cards has already been initiated and hundreds of thousands of Benazir Smart Card/Debit Cards have already been distributed among BISP beneficiaries all over the country. Once these cards reached all the millions of beneficiaries, payments would become as smooth and transparent as possible, the press release stated.

“The BISP has a firm resolve to provide swift and transparent services to the poor of Pakistan and would not let such few miscreants tarnish the hard earned name and image of BISP,” it added.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 26^th, 2012.