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New finance minister to be appointed
today: Asif
KARACHI, May 12: PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari said on Monday
night that the government has decided to appoint a new finance
minister today in place of Ishaq Dar following a decision by the PML-N
to quit the federal cabinet.
Mr Zardari told a news channel that it was the prime minister’s
prerogative to announce the name of the new finance minister.
(Reliable sources told Dawn on Monday night that senior banker
Shaukat Tareen was being tipped for the job and he might join the
government as an adviser.)
Mr Zardari said the other cabinet posts vacated by PML-N ministers
would remain vacant and ‘we will wait for Nawaz Sharif to come
back’.
He said the PPP was trying to resolve the judges’ issue as soon as
possible so that it could pay full attention to issues of ‘roti,
kapra aur makan’.
When the interviewer suggested that the current economic uncertainty
in the country was the result of some statements made by Finance
Minister Ishaq Dar about the country’s economy, Mr Zardari said: “We
must appreciate Mr Dar’s efforts. He has not lied to the people. His
statements may be bitter but they are not untrue. The economy given
to us is in bad shape. We can’t say we can resolve these problems
within 24 hours. But we can say that we can resolve them with the
passage of time.”
Mr Zardari acknowledged he had had ‘good talks’ with the Muttahida
Qaumi Movement, but hastened to add that at present the MQM was not
being inducted into the federal cabinet. He said the MQM was part of
the Sindh coalition government.
The PPP leader said that some ‘friends’ had reservations about the
MQM joining the federal cabinet, and ‘we want to keep such friends’.
“We will continue to be engaged in talks with Mian Sahib and will
not let him run away.”
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