Islamabad (Lord Media): Financial irregularities have been uncovered in the Benazir Income Support Program, involving unauthorized payments amounting to billions of U.S. dollars. The audit report for 2024-25 highlights poor administrative control and data system flaws, leading to millions being paid to ineligible individuals, including government employees and pensioners. Payments totaling 25.7 billion U.S. dollars were made without spousal verification.
According to documents, funds were distributed to 601,850 individuals without data verification, violating the procedure approved by the federal cabinet. The Auditor General has suggested using an automated system to prevent erroneous payments.
The report reveals that financial agreements worth billions with UNICEF and WHO lack audit clauses, and the audit clause was removed from a 7.46 billion U.S. dollars agreement, breaching constitutional requirements. In Islamabad, 7 million U.S. dollars were distributed among owners of vehicles larger than 800cc, and 278 government employees falsely claimed to be students, embezzling over 2.5 million U.S. dollars.
Payments of 23.9 million U.S. dollars were made to seven women using a single national identity card, revealing the use of duplicate IDs, payment delays, and lack of transparency. Over 10.5 million U.S. dollars were paid to more than 7,000 women with incorrect spousal names.
In the educational scholarship program, approximately 7 million U.S. dollars were paid to 13,898 overage students, while families of individuals traveling abroad, including to Gulf states, received unauthorized payments of 1.3 million U.S. dollars.
