Friday, April 19, 2024
A finance ministry position paper has revealed that almost half of the list of coronavirus-hit 50 lakh poor households, who are supposed to get government cash relief, is fraught with anomalies as a large number of solvent people sneaked in the list.
Finance division sources said, a total of 22,86,528 listed people have inconsistent information. Some with wrong mobile numbers, NID or smart cards and some did not mention real professions.
According to the position paper, a total of 557 names in the list, each having Tk 5 lakh national saving certificates, have illegally applied for the cash relief programme. Besides, a total of 2,855 government employees and 6,786 state pensioners are also listed in the programme.
Of the 41,20,615 people identified by ICT division, 16,16,356 are real beneficiaries who already have received cash incentives while the rest are listed either twice or illegally, according to the paper.
To this end, finance ministry will send the position paper to the disaster management and relief ministry with the recommendation of cancelling the names of 4,93,200 fake beneficiaries. Half of these names were duplicates while the rest were already listed on other social safety net programmes.
Also, finance ministry will also ask the disaster management and relief ministry to prepare a new list of 8,79,385 poor individuals who are in real need of cash relief. The names of those poor beneficiaries will go to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Division for proper scrutiny. The newly-listed beneficiaries will be asked to open bank accounts depositing only Tk 10 and will be required to provide NID or smart and mobile numbers for proper verification.
An official of finance division said the position paper did not mention political affiliation of fake beneficiaries, but there are workers and supporters of the ruling party in the list.
A pensioner from Muriauk union of Lakhai upazila in Habiganj district was asked by The Business Post why he applied for cash relief. He replied, “It was not a crime to take public money as a pensioner. I am not harming anyone.”
Former finance adviser to past caretaker government Dr AB Mirza Azizul Islam said to The Business Post that rural economy will not recover from the coronavirus crisis unless the real poor receive support from cash aid programme.
Earlier in May, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated the disbursement of Tk1,250 crore in cash assistance through mobile financial services for 50 lakh poor families. Under this programme, listed poor families, severely impacted by Covid-19 pandemic, were entitled to receive Tk 2,500 each.
But, soon allegations of anomalies in preparing the list of beneficiaries began to surface from different parts of the country. By then, some had already received money through mobile financial services before Eid- ul-Fitr.
Two meetings were held on June 15 and 27 at the Prime Minister’s office where ICT division was asked to find out the real people who are in desperate need of cash support.
