Welfare fraud

The government of Sindh, under the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), has frequently been criticised for mismanagement and corruption. Yet, the revelation that the spouses of 28,549 employees of the provincial government were illegally enlisted as beneficiaries of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) was both shocking and disheartening. These employees were basically diverting resources meant for the society’s poorest segment.

This issue is not an isolated one. A previous report from 2019 disclosed that over 140,000 government employees or their family members were among the over 800,000 individuals removed from the BISP database after being deemed ineligible. The persistence of such malpractice highlights systemic governance failures. Fraudulent practices not only deprive deserving individuals of much-needed support but also erode public trust in social welfare programmmes. To address this, the government must ensure stringent oversight of BISP, implement comprehensive beneficiary verification processes, and take decisive legal action against those responsible for exploiting the system.

Hussain Siddiqui

Islamabad