BISP Benefits and Health Card
Islamabad: Every successive government has remained under lot of criticism for its failure to introduce some meaningful reforms in improving healthcare and social services for the benefit of the poor. However, they did introduce some schemes from time to time but their proper implementation left much to be desired with the result that its benefits could not reach to those for whom these schemes are introduced. Corrupt elements within the bureaucracy and health department are major hindrances in ensuring implementation of these schemes in letter and spirit.
According to reports thousands of undeserving people have been benefitting from the Benazir Income Support Programme as well as the Health Card for the last many years and if an audit is conducted by the third party, it will reveal the corruption indulged in at a massive scale in which government officials were themselves involved.
A recent report appearing in Daily DAWN of July 22nd 2024 contributed by Malik Tehseen Raza has revealed that at least thirty-seven officials from the Muzzafargarh Highway Department were found to have benefitted from BISP programme. Once it was confirmed, the government is reported to have decided to deduct Rs. four thousand per month from the salaries of these officials. Similarly in the Education Department three hundred employees and their wives are reported to have received BISP benefits illegally. The department has initiated measures to recover this amount and those who benefitted have been asked to refund the amount received. In all wives of nine hundred eighty officers and employees from various government institutions in the district of Muzzafargarh are said to have received hundreds of thousands from BISP initiative during the past few years. Recipients includes wives of Grade- 17 ad Grade-18 employees. It also includes about twenty four police officials including Inspectors from Punjab Police who have been receiving the BISP installments regularly.
Letters demanding refund have been sent to their respective departments. BISP management has started taking steps to retrieve these funds. These findings relate to just one district hence one can very well imagine what will be the extent of this corruption scandal at the national level. Similar enquiries in other districts are needed urgently. One fails to understand how all this was going on without the connivance of the BISP management which should also be taken to task. FIA should find out who recommended their cases and action should be initiated against them as well. Simply asking for refund of the money received illegally is not enough, they all should be prosecuted and removed from service with immediate effect after proper investigations. Unfortunately, the judiciary has also disappointed the Nation and if a few of these corrupt elements are given exemplary punishment, it will send a proper message to everyone.
Similar is reported to be the case of Health Card. Corrupt elements in the health departments with the connivance of owners of private healthcare facilities is alleged to have benefitted the most from this scheme simply because of its defective implementation. Instead of offering this facility to everyone, it should have been reserved only for those who have no source of income and really deserve to be looked after. Proper audit of the funds spent in this scheme may reveal massive corruption. If on one hand it has helped many sub-standard healthcare facilities to make lot of money, it has ruined the public healthcare facilities as well in most cases. If the same funds were utilized judiciously to improve, expand the services being provided, it will have gone a long way in improving public hospitals to a great extent.
Ref: Govt. Officials penalized for illegally receiving BISP benefits. Daily DAWN July 22nd, 2024. Page-2.
