Rehman Malik denies flood aid corruption

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik has defended the way his country’s government has distributed millions of dollars of flood relief.

Rubbishing allegations of corruption from flood-affected people, Malik told the BBC that the government has launched a huge compensation scheme under which people can withdraw cash aid from local banks using special electronic cards.

Malik described the electronic card system being administered by the government as “foolproof”.

He said the problems with the scheme were due to the public’s dishonesty, and not official corruption.

However, according to the BBC, the flood-affected say they have been denied cards, while others say payments made have disappeared from their accounts.

The BBC further says that under the compensation scheme, the government will eventually give more than 85,450 rupees per household to 1.5 million families who have been directly affected by the disaster.

So far, some 38,000 cases of fraud are being investigated.

A study of flood damage conducted by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank has put total losses at about 9.7 billion dollars. (ANI)