ISLAMABAD, Feb 5: The government on Tuesday reconstituted the boards of directors of two leading public sector corporations, bringing to light a tussle between supporters of the current and former prime ministers.

The caretaker prime minister has replaced with immediate effect the chairmen and 12 members of the board of directors of the Pakistan State Oil and Sui Southern Gas Company Limited (SSGCL). They had been appointed by former prime minister Shaukat Aziz.

Interestingly, most of the replaced directors had been removed by the petroleum ministry in November for being overage but the orders were overturned by the prime minister. Likewise, many of the overage members have been reappointed in other companies, ignoring rules barring such reappointments.

Under the fresh decision, Chairman of PSO board Pervaiz Kausar and members Kamran Mirza, Tariq Kirmani, Yasin Malik and Tariq Iqbal Khan have been removed from the board. Yasin Malik has been made the new chairman of the PSO board while Iskandar Khan, Yousaf Siddiqi, Hussain Dawood and Farooq Rehmatullah have been appointed board members.

Consequently, the ministry of petroleum and natural resources has barred the old board of directors of PSO from holding its final meeting scheduled for Feb 6, thereby stopping it from approving the company’s half-yearly accounts and financial results.

Sources said the ministry did not want the outgoing board to give a legal cover to their actions at the time of their departure and claimed the ministry was perturbed over the performance of the company, whose post-tax profit declined by 40 per cent to Rs 4.70 billion in financial year 2007 from Rs 7.53 billion in 2006.

Likewise, chairman Aitzaz Shahbaz and six members of the SSGCL board have been shown the door. In their place, Salim Abbas Jilani has been appointed chairman and six new members are Qasim Rabbani, Syed Naved Hussain, Prince Yahya Jan, Nawab Riaz Qureshi, Aqeel Soomro and Iftikhar Asghar. Some of the new members have close links in the caretaker set-up.

Interestingly, Mr Jilani was removed from the chairmanship of the Pak-Arab Refinery Limited in November by the petroleum ministry for being over-aged but he has now been given the chairmanship of SSGCL.

In his last days before departure, former prime minister Shaukat Aziz had framed rules that all chairmen, chief executives and members of regulatory and autonomous bodies, corporations and commissions, would cease to hold office on attaining the age of 65 years or expiry of the tenure whichever was earlier. On October 9, 2007, Mr Aziz had directed all the ministries and divisions to implement the decisions.

After the caretaker government was formed, the petroleum ministry on November 17 issued notifications removing about 20 members of the board of directors of eight attached corporations and autonomous bodies, including chairmen of four companies because they had “cease(d) to hold office in the light of these policy instructions”.

As a result, Salim Abbas Jilani, Pervaiz Kausar, Irfanullah Khan Marwat, Mohammad Azam Khan Alizai (chairmen respectively of Parco, PSO, Lakhra Coal Mines and Pakistan Petroleum Limited) and 16 members of various public sector oil and gas companies had ceased to hold office.