The Benazir Income Support Program has come under renewed scrutiny after an audit for FY25 identified irregular payments, weak internal controls, and data deficiencies involving more than 600,000 beneficiary records with a combined financial exposure exceeding Rs. 25 billion.
According to the Auditor General’s report, BISP disbursed Rs. 515.7 million under its Unconditional Cash Transfer Program to 12,078 government employees, pensioners, and their spouses during FY25, despite a 2019 federal cabinet decision barring civil servants and their families from receiving assistance.
The audit also found that 1,719 beneficiaries owning vehicles above the prescribed threshold continued receiving payments totaling Rs. 69.7 million. Auditors noted that since the review covered only vehicle registrations in Islamabad, irregular payments nationwide could be significantly higher.
In addition, 165 schools fully funded by Pakistan Bait-ul-Mal were simultaneously enrolled under the Benazir Taleemi Wazaif programme, leading to duplicate stipend payments of Rs. 17.7 million. Another 278 government employees were found enrolled as higher secondary students, receiving Rs. 2.5 million in educational stipends.
Auditors highlighted serious weaknesses in beneficiary profiling and data validation. A total of 5,558 cases involved a single spouse CNIC linked to as many as seven female beneficiaries, while 596,252 beneficiaries had no spouse CNIC recorded at all, representing disbursements worth Rs. 25.46 billion.
The report also identified nearly 97,200 instances where multiple poverty scores were assigned to the same household head, resulting in the irregular enrollment of almost 19,000 beneficiaries and an estimated misallocation of Rs. 533.5 million.
The Departmental Accounts Committee has directed BISP to recover irregular payments, improve data sharing with Pakistan Bait-ul-Mal and Nadra, establish stronger verification mechanisms, and conduct physical inspections of high-risk households.
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