KARACHI: A large number of government officers — from Grade 17 to Grade 21 — have been identified illegally getting benefit from the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP).
According to a report, provincial and federal public servants getting benefit themselves or their spouses from the government program had been removed from the BISP list. More than 0.8 million undeserving people, including the officers, have been getting financial aid from the program.
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According to Express News, 2543 government officers from Grade 17 to 21 are included in the names removed from the list of beneficiaries, several of them had been getting money in their spouses’ names.
Those who reaped benefit quarterly from the BISP include three Grade 21 officers, 59 Grade 20 officers, 429 Grade 19 officers, 342 Grade 18 officers (in Sindh only) and 240 Grade 17 officers across the country.
Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry has bashed the officers for their illegal practices.
In Dec 2019, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari had criticized the government for removing more than 800,000 beneficiaries of the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP).
The PPP chairman had accused the government of “doling out government benefits only to the moneyed class” saying it was creating poverty and unemployment in the country.
“The PTI government has taken total U-Turns on its pre-election promises of providing 10 million jobs and 5 million houses. Instead, it is overseeing mass unemployment, mass homelessness in the name of ‘anti-encroachment’, and multiplying poverty through its ruthless anti-poor policies,” he had said.
