Lahore:
Pakistan People Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML) renewed their verbal spit on the use of the Benazir income support program (BISP) on Wednesday to provide support to people affected by floods in Punjab.
The PPP has long recommended the proposal that the BISP would be the most appropriate way to support the victims of the floods, however, the Punjab government, led by the PML-N, is opposed to the idea. The provincial government insists that the government’s help efforts were going well.
BISP is a national program to provide cash assistance to poor and vulnerable families, especially targeting women. On Wednesday, the first lady Asefa Bhutto Zardari warned that it would be “irresponsible not to use” the bisp – the “most effective means” – to distribute the aid.
His comments one day came after the Minister of Information of Punjab, Azma Bokhari, revealed that the provincial government issued “emergency cards” to flood victims in their personal names of its own resources instead of using the bisp to help them.
ASEEFA wrote on its X social media account that recent unprecedented floods in Punjab have had an impact on more than 4 million people, stressing that BISP would be the most efficient and fastest way for the distribution of aid.
“Benazir’s income support program is the fastest and most effective way to distribute alleviation. Do not use one of the key organizations in the state, which has both data and the ability to provide help, would be irresponsible,” she published.
However, Bokhari strongly criticized the PPP which drags the bisp in the floods. “No one wants to abolish the bisp. The question is: Why do you want to use it during the floods?” Bukhari has asked “to drag him several times in the flood policy is exactly what we call politicization,” she said.
She accused the PPP of ignoring the interests of the people of Punjab and of using floods. She defended the performance of the government of Punjab during the floods, saying that even the president of the PPP, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, himself congratulated the chief minister of Punjab, Maryam Nawaz.
By questioning the role of the PPP in Punjab, the provincial information minister said: “When, while living in Punjab, never fight the case of Punjab? Do you want the people of Punjab to be deprived of wheat, flour and bread?”
She added: “If you were able to do anything, you would not be seated at home telling us where the flood was going to strike or where the embankment was going to break. Such decisions are made by governments according to situations and circumstances.”
