LONDON: British Prime Minister Theresa May has been forced to defend the United Kingdom’s aid to fund Pakistan’s Benazir Income Support Program after a senior Tory member called for an investigation in to the programme, comparing the aid to ‘exporting doles,’ the British media reported.
According to The Telegraph newspaper, British lawmaker Nigel Evans, a former Commons deputy speaker and member of the International Development Select Committee, compared the aid to exporting doles and warned that cash transfers were clearly vulnerable to fraud. Evans called on the International Development Secretary, Priti Patel, for an appraisal.
“Normally this sort of aid is only given in a crisis or emergency when it is the only way to give help. It only should be a temporary measure, but it seems like we’re exporting the dole to Pakistan, which is clearly not a clever idea,” he said. “Anything that involves money needs to be properly scrutinised and is clearly open to fraud with money siphoned away when it ought to be directed to those most in need,” Evans added.
“These are cash transfers that are focused on making sure that aid is targeted at those who need it, when they need it. In the last four years, cash transfers supported by UK aid have helped almost nine million of the world’s poorest people to buy food, medicine, and clean water. There are robust systems in place to make sure that they are not being exploited for fraud and corruption,” the prime minister’s spokesperson said in a Westminister briefing.
The spokesperson justified that the government would “only pursue such an option where we were clear that results had already been achieved and verified.” The UK aid budget helps fund the Benazir Income Support Programme with British taxpayers’ money. The programme supports more than 235, 000 families across Pakistan and has the potential to increase to 441,000 by the year 2020. The aid budget has increased from £53 million in 2005 to an annual average of £219 million from 2011-2015, with further commitment of £300 million for the 2012-2020 period.
The Department for International Development (DfID) defended BISP, stating that the direct transfer of cash reduces fraud risks while minimising cost of delivery and giving the families direct access to cash for necessities like food and rent. The former Commons deputy speaker stood vindicated in the investigation run by a newspaper which found people living on the outskirts of Peshawar, dependent on the programme, claiming to have to pay kickbacks to the officials to get their funds.
A DfID spokesperson responded to the issue by saying, “Cash transfers allow aid to be more efficiently targeted to those who need it, when they need it. In Pakistan, the roll out of biometric payments makes our programme one of the most secure cash transfers in the world, and means British taxpayers can be sure that the help they provide goes to the less fortunate, not those abusing the system,” he said. “We have a zero-tolerance approach to fraud and corruption and we have robust systems in place to protect our investments.”
