Change in BISP name needs amendment

ISLAMABAD: The word “Benazir” in the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) can be removed or replaced through an amendment, to be passed by both the Houses of the federal legislature, in the relevant act of Parliament through which it was inserted when the initiative was introduced.

Makhdoom Mohsin, a member of the Sindh-based GDA, which is a coalition partner of the PTI at the federal level, demanded of Prime Minister Imran Khan to dispense with the word “Benazir” from the BISP and he promptly agreed to do that. The GDA and PTI also cooperate as the opposition parties in the Sindh Assembly.

The GDA hand in hand with the PTI tried to pose itself as an ominous force against the PPP in the 2018 general elections in the interior parts of Sindh, but failed to show any impressive performance. The final tally of federal and provincial seats of the PPP from this region was more than that of the 2013 parliamentary polls.

Faced with an expected harsh reaction from the PPP, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi has stated that the demand to remove the word "Benazir" was simply an opinion and that he was personally not in favour of this change.

Keen parliamentary observers point out that the PTI and its alliance partners are in a comfortable position in the National Assembly to erase the word “Benazir” from the BISP through an amendment in the act but such a bill will be nailed in the opposition parties’ dominated Senate.

However, the PTI can achieve the objective, maybe temporarily, through a presidential ordinance, which will have only 120-day life, after which it would lapse. Under the Constitution, an ordinance will have to be laid before the two houses of Parliament for approval. Every chamber has the power to pass a disapproving resolution to kill an ordinance. After such move in the Senate, such a piece of legislation will instantly become extinct. Its re-promulgation will be difficult in view of the Supreme Court judgments that have barred re-issuance of ordinances. During the tenure of the PPP government (2008-2013), the National Assembly and Senate passed the BISP Act, which was assented by the president on August 12, 2010.

However, its clause 3 says that the act shall come into force at once and shall be deemed to have taken effect on and from the 13th day of April 2009. When the PPP had formed the government in collaboration with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) after 2008 general elections, Ishaq Dar, who had been appointed as the finance minister of this short-lived coalition setup, had suggested that a programme to provide immediate financial assistance to the poor should be launched without any delay.

PML-N and PPP leaders point out that at the time, Zardari, who later became president of Pakistan in September 2008 following Pervez Musharraf’s exit from this office, had recommended that such programme should be named after his slain wife and PPP Chairperson Benazir Bhutto. None had raised any objection to it. This was done to pay tributes to the political heavyweight, who was assassinated in December 2007.

When animosity heightened between the PPP and PML-N during the period of the latter’s government, the regime gave a serious thought for a while to rub out the word “Benazir” from the BISP, but the idea was promptly dropped as many believed that this would unnecessarily create more political confrontation and enmity.

It was also during the PPP government that a premier medical facility, the Rawalpindi General Hospital (RGH), was rechristened as the Benazir Bhutto Hospital. In Sindh a large number of projects were named after Benazir Bhutto, including even Nawabshah district which was given the nomenclature of Shaheed Benazirabad district.

According to the BISP act, a council was created that has the president of Pakistan as the chief patron and the prime minister as its executive patron. It comprises highly reputable, distinguished and well accomplished national and international individuals, who are appointed by the chief patron on the advice of the executive patron.

Its powers and functions are to mobilise financial resources for the BISP and to advise its board on the policies on poverty reduction; enhancement of the programme; reaching out to the donors through the BISP chairperson and the board’s affairs and performance of its functions. It has to meet at least once in a year.

Since its inception, the BISP has been going on successfully and has regularly helped the poor and needy through a well-devised mechanism. Ironically, the PPP and PML-N governments appointed their cardholders as the chairpersons of the BISP. However, the PTI regime has shunned this practice by naming technocrat Dr Sania Nishtar as the BISP head.