EDITORIAL (March 08 2010): Launched with great fanfare by the PPP government, Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) is not making the desired progress in impacting the lives of poor people in a significant way. Addressing a signing ceremony of $85 million assistance by the United States, Chairperson of BISP, Farzana Raja revealed that the government had disbursed Rs 16 billion among the beneficiaries during the first eight months (July-February) of the current fiscal year.

This indicates very clearly that the government will not be able to achieve the target of Rs 70 billion allocated for the programme during 2009-10. In fact, the utilisation during the year could be even less than half the target fixed for the year. So far, BISP secretariat had accepted 2.4 million applications submitted by the parliamentarians and a survey was to be carried out in Balochistan next month to provide cash assistance under the Haqooq-e-Balochistan package.

As is usual, some pleasantries were also exchanged at the signing ceremony. The US Co-ordinator for Civilian Assistance, Ambassador Robin Raphel remarked that his country was very pleased to contribute $85 million (Rs 7.2 billion) to the BISP, which would help low-income families meet their everyday needs and also empower women economically. Thanking the US government, Farzana Raja appreciated the hard work done by Ambassador Raphel for making the BISP a success and placing financial resources at the disposal of the Pakistan government for assisting poor families.

We feel that the concept of BISP and its progress could be analysed from many angles. Initiated by the present government in 2008, BISP seeks to assist approximately 15 percent of the Pakistani population among the 40 percent of those living below the poverty line. However, since its inception, the progress on the programme has been rather poor. The government cannot afford to disburse huge amounts of money on the programme due to budgetary reasons, while the beneficiaries are handicapped by constraints like lack of access to the right quarters, including the parliamentarians and the absence of certain basic prerequisites such as the availability of national identity cards.

However, our view is that while such programmes could be useful in a crisis or distress situation and that too for a short period, their perpetuation needs to be discouraged as a long-term policy measure to provide succour to the targeted groups. The continuation of such programmes is likely to encourage the dependency syndrome, and in certain cases, begging, which usually destroys self-respect and curbs the will to work. The fact that the US government has also contributed to the programme is rather embarrassing.

That means that the government is indirectly asking foreign governments to feed our poor people and is not willing to curtail its non-development expenditures, or mobilise more domestic revenues to allocate higher level of resources for such projects. The involvement of parliamentarians to distribute the funds would only encourage the culture of patronage and affect transparency of the programme. The country has a history of mismanaging such programmes, which are usually terminated when the incumbent government leaves office. We are not totally against such programmes, especially as an emergency measure, but the level of transparency in their execution needs to be much higher for them to be really effective and non-discriminatory.

However, we should never forget that the best route for the alleviation of poverty and generating higher levels of employment is through economic emancipation. Once the engine of economic development is put into motion, standards of living automatically tend to improve and deprivation and poverty in the society become a thing of the past.

The basics to reach such a stage are well known. For instance, the saving rate in the economy has to be enhanced substantially, tax mobilisation efforts have to be pursued more vigorously, the law and order situation has to be improved significantly, good governance has to be ensured and the basic infrastructure like the provision of electricity has to be guaranteed to place the economy on the right track. Unfortunately, Pakistan is faced with a lot of problems in all these areas at the moment, but increased emphasis on the BISP is not the real answer to change the economic destiny of the poverty-stricken people in an effective manner and on a durable basis.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2010