Senator Shaukat Tarin has been sworn in as finance minister for a second time, Monday as the government scrambled to legitimise his authority.
Shaukat Tarin was first appointed finance minister on April 16 but his constitutionally permitted tenure ended on October 16, after which his post was changed from minister to prime minister’s advisor on finance and revenue.
The rules are that an unelected person can only hold the portfolio of a federal minister for six months without being elected a member of one of the two houses.
By December 20, however, Tarin was elected a senator from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on a seat vacated by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf’s (PTI) Ayub Afridi. He received 87 votes out of which four votes were rejected, and five lawmakers were absent during the elections, according to Health Minister Taimur Jhagra.
(Ayub Afridi was later appointed the PM’s advisor on Overseas Pakistanis.)
Earlier on, the PTI government tried to have former finance minister Hafeez Shaikh elected to the Senate, but failed when he lost the seat to Yousuf Raza Gilani. Shaikh was appointed finance advisor in April 2019 after his predecessor Asad Umar resigned as finance minister. Shaikh was sworn in as minister in December 2021.
On March 28, he was removed from his post and replaced with Hammad Azhar who was given additional charge of the finance ministry.
Making Tarin the finance minster became imperative for the government because he cannot take executive decisions as an advisor. This is because the Islamabad High Court had, in August 2020, declared that the PM’s advisors and special assistants cannot exercise executive or administrative powers.
“Appointing an Adviser with the status of a Minister does not empower them to act or function as a Minister or to perform functions under the Rules of Business 1973,” said the court in its verdict.
President Dr Arif Alvi administered the oath at President House, Islamabad.
Who is Shaukat Tarin?
Shaukat Tarin is a banker by profession and worked as the president of HBL in 1997. In 2000, he built Union Bank, which was later sold to Standard Chartered Bank.
Tarin became a senator and federal finance minister in President Asif Ali Zardari’s government. As finance minister under the PPP government, Tarin signed the bailout program with the IMF under which the government concluded the seventh NFC Award. However, he left the ministry without completing his tenure to start his own bank, Silk Bank, where he served at top positions.
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