Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) has failed to disburse $430 million under the Social Protection Development Project despite a lapse of more than three years.

Daily Times learnt that BISP distributed only $123 million to 5.3 million beneficiaries until November 2016. The programme identified 7.2 million poor families (23% of the total population) for the project on the basis of a nationwide poverty scorecard survey.

Documents indicate that the Asian Development Bank and the government had signed a social protection development project agreement worth $430 million in November 2013 for families with little or no income in Pakistan.

Under the project, the BISP is obliged to spend $430 million on education, health, and public sector management. In this agreement, $80 million were earmarked for health and education and the remainder was allocated for social protection initiatives.

“No meetings have been held between the ADB and BISP officials to utilize the $80 million. BISP is of the view that after devolution, this matter has been transferred to provinces. This issue was also discussed in BISP board meetings but it has failed to provide any alternative,” sources said.

First, the BISP failed in distributing $80 million and secondly it also failed in reaching the remaining 2 million poor people in the time stipulated. The ADB and BISP discussed the issue and it was decided that ADB will provide a five-quarter amount to the newly enrolled beneficiaries.

Sources added that in spite of failing to enroll new beneficiaries, the BISP and ADB enhanced the distribution to already enrolled people and reimbursed the amount. The Finance Ministry took this opportunity and used the disbursed $174 million for budgetary support.

According to documents, the project will enable the expansion of the cash transfer programme (paid to the female head of targeted poor families) by registering an additional 2.4 million eligible families and financing the first few quarters of their cash transfers. In addition, it will support the strengthening and phased expansion of the pilot health insurance and skills development programmes to increase income and good health for targeted families.

The project will provide technical support and finance part of the scaling-up costs of both programs using a performance-based allocation. The substantial fiduciary risk of the project will be mitigated through the strengthening of BISP financial management systems and capacity.