Shaukat Tarin takes reins of finance ministry in latest shake-up

Ag APP

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday once again reshuffled his cabinet, appointing Shaukat Tarin as the new Minister for Finance and Revenue, in place of Hammad Azhar, who held the office for a little over three weeks after Hafeez Shaikh was shown the door.

Tarin, a banker who was the finance minister in the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government in 2009, is the most recent entry to the federal cabinet. Hammad Azhar, previously the industries and productions minister and then the finance minister, will now work as the Minister for Energy. He has replaced Omar Ayub Khan who has now been appointed as economic affairs minister.

In place of Hammad Azhar, the Prime Minister appointed Khusro Bakhtiar as Minister for Industries and Production. The Prime Minister appointed Fawad Chaudhry as Minister for Information and Broadcasting, replacing Senator Shibli Faraz who took up Chaudhry’s spot as science and technology minister, according to the PM Office. A day earlier, PM’s aide Shahbaz Gill said Chaudhry had been given charge of the ministry.

Following the announcement, the information minister tweeted that he was grateful to the Prime Minister for providing him the opportunity to work as the minister of Science and Technology. “I realise if one ministry that can change fate of Pakistan it’s the Ministry of Science and Technology. I hope in future we’ll merge information technology in Ministry of Science and Technology and will make a super effort to change Pakistan into a hub of knowledge economy.”

He also thanked his team for their great team work with “bestie” Shibli Faraz. “I’ll be closely associated with tasks I initiated there. As information minister my task is to change misperceptions about Pakistan and highlight vibrant effort of government of making Naya Pakistan.”

In March, Prime Minister Imran Khan had removed then finance minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh and given the portfolio to Hammad Azhar as an additional charge. That same month, Shibli Faraz had revealed the Prime Minister’s intentions on reshuffling the cabinet, saying that he was bringing in a new team.

Faraz said decisions were made keeping in view the realities of the country and that the PTI regime wished to give relief to the poor. “When a new individual comes along, they come up with new ideas,” he had said.