ISLAMABAD
The Finance Ministry on Tuesday notified the constitution of the task force on strengthening social safety-net programmes to review programmes’ performance, assess their effectiveness and to determine that these programmes are optimally operated and no overlapping in their scope and work is present.
The Ministry of Finance, in pursuance of the announcement made by the Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar in his budget speech 2014-15, has notified constitution of task force on strengthening social safety-net programmes.
The composition of the task force is as follows: Dr. Sania Nishtar, Member Economic Advisory Council (EAC) Convener and its members included Qazi Azmat Isa, Member EAC, Dr. Abid Qaiyum Suleri, Member EAC, Member (Social Sector) Planning Commission, Additional Secretary (Expenditure) Finance Division, Additional Secretary, Cabinet Division, Additional Secretary Establishment Division, Secretary, Benazir Income Support Programme, Managing Director, Pakistan Bait-ul-Mal and Dr. GM Arif, PIDE.
In the budget speech, the Finance Minister had said, “A large number of social safety-net programmes are scattered across different ministries and departments and it is not evident if these programmes are fully synergised with each other.
To strengthen these programmes it has been decided to establish a high-powered task force to undertake a detailed review of the programmes’ performance, assess their effectiveness, and to determine that these programmes are optimally operated and no overlapping in their scope and work is present.
Based on the report of the Task Force a new policy will be formulated that would allow more coordinated delivery of social safety-net services by the government”.
The terms of reference of the Task Force will be; a: To make a detailed review of the Safety-Net Programmes and their performance;
b: To assess the effectiveness of these programmes to determine that they are optimally operated and there is no over-lap in their scope and work; c: The Task Force will formulate its recommendations in three months for submission to the Finance Minister.