Adviser to the Chief Minister on Information and Public Relations, Barrister Dr. Muhammad Ali Saif, has alleged significant financial mismanagement in Punjab\u2019s Ramadan Nigehbaan Package 2024, initiated under the leadership of Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz.
\nSpeaking to media representatives, Barrister Dr. Saif claimed that an audit report had revealed serious irregularities, including the disbursement of ration to ineligible recipients and major data discrepancies.
\nHe accused the Punjab government of copying Khyber Pakhtunkhwa\u2019s Ramadan relief model without proper planning or oversight, leading to substantial losses from the national treasury.
\n\u201cEven copying requires intelligence,\u201d Dr. Saif remarked. \u201cMaryam Nawaz has squandered billions from the national exchequer by replicating Ali Amin Gandapur\u2019s Ramadan package without due diligence.\u201d
\nCiting the audit report, he claimed that 9,300 government employees\u2014deemed ineligible\u2014allegedly embezzled rations worth Rs 34.6 million.
\nFurthermore, an estimated 441,000 eligible recipients in Lahore, Rahim Yar Khan, Faisalabad, and Rawalpindi did not receive their ration packets, amounting to a loss of Rs 1.63 billion.
\nOverall, the report suggests a financial discrepancy of Rs 1.81 billion due to faulty data, he added and questioned the distribution process, pointing out that around 500,000 ration packets were reportedly sent to incorrect addresses.
\n\u201cIf the addresses were wrong, the question arises\u2014where did these packets actually go?\u201d he asked.
\nHe criticized the Punjab Food Authority for allegedly neglecting quality checks and held the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) and Deputy Commissioners responsible for failing to verify addresses and data accuracy.
\nHe further accused the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) of negligence for not updating the list of eligible recipients in time.
\nDr. Saif blamed the Punjab government\u2019s alleged inefficiency on Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, accusing her of wasting taxpayer money due to administrative mismanagement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Adviser to the Chief Minister on Information and Public Relations, Barrister Dr. Muhammad Ali Saif, has alleged significant financial mismanagement in Punjab\u2019s Ramadan Nigehbaan Package 2024, initiated under the leadership of Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz. Speaking to media representatives, Barrister Dr. Saif claimed that an audit report had revealed serious irregularities, including the disbursement of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":81821,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81814"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81814\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81830,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81814\/revisions\/81830"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}