May 13, 2008	Tuesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 7, 1429

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.”