October 16, 2008	Thursday	Shawwal 16, 1429

PESHAWAR, Oct 15: A cash-strapped Pakistan risks squandering billions of rupees earmarked for the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) which in its present shape is unlikely to improve the socio-economic profile of the country in the absence of a monitoring mechanism to identify genuine recipients and because of political wranglings amongst coalition partners, says a senior official.

The government does not have an effective monitoring and institutional mechanism for disbursement of cash grants, and this would be a major impediment to achieving the objectives of the multi-billion rupee project, the official who took part in designing the BISP told Dawn.

President Asif Ali Zardari launched the project on Oct 9 with an initial allocation of Rs34 billion. Under the scheme, a poor family with a monthly income of less than Rs5,000 would be given Rs2,000 every two months. Initially, about three million poor people will benefit from the scheme.

The disbursement procedure requires MNAs and Senators to collect completed and signed forms in multiples of 500 and mail them to Nadra in pre-addressed envelopes provided by the BISP. Nadra will verify the information in 15 days and post the final list on a website being created specifically for the purpose.

Even for this ad hoc arrangement, the government had no reliable procedure to reach the target groups because only MNAs and Senators would recommend deserving families on the basis of the information gathered through their own channels, the official said.

“It is impossible for me to personally verify 8,000 families in my constituency, so I will have to rely on local office-bearers of my party or other supporters,” conceded Masood Abass, an MNA from the Nowshera. Therefore, it would be up to them (party office-bearers) to determine which families deserved to be recommended.

An Islamabad-based official, who had opposed the project during senior-level talks, said the BISP was unlikely to make any big difference because past experiences showed that such ‘politically-motivated’ programmes usually ended up obliging political loyalists and the people the authorities favoured, instead of the genuine cases.

“This happens mainly because we don’t have an effective institutional mechanism for such an undertaking,” the official said.

Apart from the federal ministry, Social Welfare Departments were functioning in the provinces to oversee Zakat distribution, while Baitulmal was doing the same job, the official said. Therefore, he said, instead of strengthening these institutions, launching another initiative without a proper organisational structure would lead to wastage of resources.

The government says that Rs1,000 monthly cash grant will increase the purchasing power of the people by 20 per cent. But many believe that the amount is insufficient to mitigate the financial woes of the lower income group badly hit by an unprecedented hike in food prices.

“We are promoting beggary through these charity-like interventions,” said the official, adding that Rs1,000 per month would not guarantee economic empowerment. “But we can make wonders if the amount is allocated for the programme annually and regular funding of Zakat and Baitulmal are utilised for income generation projects such as micro-credit.”

Philanthropy

According to the US newspaper Christian Science Monitor, Pakistan has one of the highest rates of philanthropy in the world, and 58 per cent Pakistanis volunteer their time and resources to noble causes, giving nearly $700 million a year in charity.

Similarly, some $70 million was deducted at source each year from bank accounts as Zakat, the paper reported in 2006.

Dr Mohsin Khan, a Peshawar-based economist and banker, argued that traditionally the governments lacked capacity and competence to run income generating programmes. He said that improvement of people’s socio-economic conditions was possible only if governments channelised maximum resources and gave the lead role to private sector.

“If funds earmarked for Zakat or other programmes meant for the poor are handed over to the private sector to run them, we can change the whole situation within a short span of time,” said Mr Khan, adding that poverty could not be eliminated through charity-like programmes.

Talking to this correspondent, Mr Kaiser Bengali, a coordinator of BISP, admitted that the government did not have a monitoring mechanism for verifying information about recipients. He, however, said that it had an institutional mechanism and was putting in place a system to verify the disbursement of the cash grant.

Mr Bengali said the BISP’s main office was located in the Cabinet Division while offices were being established at the provincial level. Officials deputed in provincial offices would pick union councils and check financial status of recipients.

Similarly, a list of recipients would also be displayed at the General Post Offices across the country to ensure that those not having access to Internet could also be informed about the programme.

“The BISP is completely different from other routine interventions because it is meant for supporting the low-income groups, and not alleviating poverty,” Mr Bengali said when asked how could poverty be overcome through Rs1,000 per month cash grant.

In the absence of a proper mechanism to monitor the implementation of the project, political wranglings within the ruling PPP and its coalition partners have also started coming to the fore.

“The BISP has been launched in the name of our Shaheed leader, but it will benefit only our political opponents in areas where we don’t have an MNA or a senator,” Khawaja Yawar Naseer, provincial spokesperson for the PPP, told Dawn.

The PPP-led coalition government had claimed that the disbursement of the BISP would be kept away from local politics because each MNA and senator, irrespective of party affiliations, had been given an equal quota of 8,000 forms to recommend recipients of the grant.

“The Awami National Party, for example, has two MNAs and two Senators from Peshawar City whereas our party has none. This is natural that the ANP leaders will oblige only their party workers,” said Mr Naseer, adding: “Politics will dominate the disbursement of cash grant.”

Apart from Peshawar, party office-bearers in different parts of the province have started demanding a special quota for workers. Office-bearers of PPP from different districts of the Frontier province in a meeting held in Peshawar two days ago, came up with the same demand.

A PPP leader in Mansehra who lost to PML-Q candidate in the election has similar reservations and said that MNA Shahjehan Yousuf had recommended only loyalists of his party and ignored workers of other parties.

The party organisation in Karak has made a similar demand and asked President Asif Ali Zardari to change the procedure and give the main role to the party in executing the programme.