Daily Times

The caretaker government has decided to remove Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader Marvi Memon as chairperson of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP).

The interim government reportedly took the decision over criticism from different political quarters.

A summary regarding Marvi’s removal as BISP chief has already been sent to President Mamnoon Hussain.

Earlier, Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) had written a letter to the chief election commissioner seeking Marvi’s removal from the position. The PPP stated that Marvi did not resign like other cabinet members when the five-year term of the PML-N government dissolved on May 31and continued to work as chief of the BISP. The BISP is a highly influential programme that disburses money to millions of families and can be easily manipulated for the upcoming elections, the letter had stated. A PML-N supporter and formerly an MNA continues to hold the office of the BISP chairperson, which is tantamount to pre-poll rigging, it further read. Therefore, Marvi be told to resign and a senior bureaucrat take over as the BISP chairperson until the new government is formed, it demanded.

Marvi Memon had been elected to the National Assembly on a reserved seat for women from Sindh in 2013.She had assumed the office in February 2015 after Enver Baig resigned as BISP chairman in protest after developing differences with the then finance minister Ishaq Dar.

The BISP had been launched by the PPP government in 2009 to provide monetary assistance to poor families.

Published in Daily Times, June 23^rd 2018.