The Federal Investigation Agency has claimed to have unearthed corruption of over Rs3.8 billion in the Benazir Income Support Programme launched by the PPP government in 2008 to provide monetary assistance to the poor. Cases of misappropriation of funds, irregular purchase of vehicles, wastage of money, award of controversial contracts, over payments, irregular procurements, illegal appointments, etc, have been detected.
Insiders said that the FIA was seeking relevant records for further investigation.
Under the programme, initially an assistance of Rs1,000 per month was given to a family. Later the amount was raised to Rs1,200.
The biggest misappropriation of funds, the document alleges, was made in the name of flood relief. An amount of Rs2.345bn was paid to people unaffected by floods.
Another amount of Rs817.016 million was paid to the National Database and Registration Authority for data entry and verification and for a media campaign on poverty survey public awareness without obtaining prior review and a no-objection letter and vetting of contracts from the World Bank.
The BISP management is accused of making an irregular payment of Rs104m as monthly operational charges for deployment of Nadra’s mobile vehicles for CNIC registration of beneficiaries.
According to the document, vehicles costing Rs5.710m were purchased allegedly in violation of the policy regarding official use of vehicles and monetization policy and official vehicles sold to officials of grade 20 and above at throw away prices.
