Possible candidates for Pakistani finance minister
Business Wednesday, February 24th, 2010Pakistani Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin said on Tuesday he was resigning to focus on his private business interests.
Tarin’s resignation is not expected to destabilise the government but international donors will be keen to see a respected minister appointed in his place.
Pakistani stocks fell on the news as well as on confirmation of a 10 percent capital gains tax that will soon be applied to the purchase of shares, dealers said.
Here are some facts about possible candidates:
ISHRAT HUSAIN
Husain was governor of the central bank, the State Bank of Pakistan, from 1999 to 2005 and is now dean and director of the prominent Institute of Business Administration in Karachi.
He also served as a World Bank director for the Central Asian Republics and as chief economist for the bank’s African region and East Asia and Pacific region.
However, an official with knowledge of developments, said on Tuesday that Husain had been approached by the government on the possibility of becoming finance minister but had declined the offer.
HAFIZ PASHA
Pasha is a prominent economist and a member of the government’s economic advisory council. He is now dean of the school of social sciences at Beaconhouse National University in Pakistan.
Pasha also served as an assistant secretary general at the United Nations, a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) assistant administrator and a director of the UNDP’s regional office for Asia and the Pacific.
Pasha served as a deputy chairman of the Planning Commission in the mid-1990s under then prime minister Nawaz Sharif and in 1998 became a finance adviser to Sharif.
NASIM BEG
Beg is the founder and chief executive of Arif Habib Ltd, a prominent Pakistani asset management company. A qualified chartered accountant, Beg served as the deputy chief executive of the state-run National Investment Trust, which manages the country’s largest and oldest mutual fund. Beg was briefly the chief executive for NIT.
MAKHDOOM SHAHABUDDIN
Shahabuddin, a lawyer, is federal minister for planning and development, and is a member of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party of President Asif Ali Zardari. He was elected to the National Assembly in 1994 and served as minister of state for finance. In 2008, he again won a National Assembly seat and was appointed federal minister for planning and development.
ANY OTHERS NAMES?
On Monday, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani was caught advertently by media microphones telling Ishaq Dar, a former commerce and finance minister under former prime minister Sharif in the 1990s, that Tarin would be leaving.
Those comments have raised speculation the prime minister might offer the job to Dar.
Dar was briefly finance minister after a 2008 election but left his job when Sharif pulled his party out of the ruling coalition. His chance of becoming finance minister would appear remote as Sharif’s party is not in the coalition.
When Dar stepped down in 2008, he was briefly replaced by Naveed Qamar, who served as chairman of the Privatisation Commission under former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in the 199Os. Qamar later gave up the finance portfolio to make way for Tarin and became privatisation minister. He later give up the privatisation portfolio and became minister for petroleum and natural resources.
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on Feb 24 2010. Filed under