Report says the board had not notified rules as per BISP Act 2010 PHOTO: FILE
Around Rs74 billion had been disbursed as part of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) without approval of rules of distribution by the Board, according to the audit report.
Regulations for disbursements of funds of Rs74.412 billion to eligible persons and families were not approved by the BISP Board, the Audit and Inspection Report of the programme, for the audit year 2012-13 and financial year 2010-12, stated.
The report was prepared by Saqib Latif, audit expert, Nauman Danish, assistant audit officer, Sarosh Jalees, senior auditor under supervision of Director Muhammad Raza Shah.
The contents of the audit document available with The Express Tribune further state that a review of the BISP Board meetings from October 19, 2010 to January 20, 2012 indicate that the Board had not approved or notified any rules for distribution of funds.
The Board had on an ad-hoc basis approved various initiatives under the programme. However no directives were provided for making payments. Audit is of the view that the payments made are “irregular” in light of the provision contained in the BISP Act 2010.
The management, however, replied to the audit finding, saying that all the payments are being made after approval of standard operating procedure by the BISP Board. The regulations have been formulated and the process of making sub-regulations relating to different operational areas is under way, the reply added.
The audit team rejected the reply, reiterating the point that the BISP management has not been notified with any regulations in the light of the BISP Act 2010.
The report recommended that regulations be notified in accordance with the BISP Act 2010, section 6(I)(d) of which states that the Board’s powers and functions shall be to make regulations and approve policies and manuals.
The section 12 of the act states that funds of the programme shall be disbursed to eligible persons and families in a manner approved by the Board and prescribed in the regulations.
Disbursement record
The BISP management made payments during 2010-12 under various programmes that include Poverty Scorecard System, Parliamentarian System, Waseela-e-Haq, Waseela-e-Rozghar, Waseela-e-Sehat, Emergency Relief Package and among internally displaced persons (IDPs).
According to the audit report, from total of Rs74.412 billion disbursed during financial year 2010-11 and 2011-12, Rs48.310 billion were distributed through Poverty Scorecard System, Rs16.526 billion through Parliamentarian System, Rs1.848 billion through Waseela-e-Haq, Rs266,802 million through Waseela-e-Rozghar, Rs2.747 billion through Waseela-e-Sehat, Rs4.451 billion through Emergency Relief Package while an amount of Rs261,967 million has been distributed among IDPs.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 20th, 2013.
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Ever since this program, involving billions of tax payers money & foreign fundings, was introduced, not a single audit report has seen the day light.His lordship CJP to kindly take a note of it.Whereever & as far as one can see one finds corruption oozing through the ears of last government's functionaries.