KARACHI: Chief Minister-elect Syed Murad Ali Shah will take oath of his office on Saturday (today).

He was elected as the leader of the house of the Sindh Assembly on Thursday.

He would be administered oath by acting Governor Agha Siraj Durrani in a ceremony to be held at the Governor House.

Pakistan Peoples Party chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari and other central leaders of the party and parliamentarian have been invited to attend the oath-taking ceremony.

Mr Shah would begin his second term as the 33rd chief minister of Sindh after the separation of the province from Bombay. He would be the 29th CM of the province after the creation of Pakistan.

He inherited politics from his late father, Syed Abdullah Shah, who remained Sindh CM from Oct 21, 1993 to Nov 6, 1996.

Born in Sehwan Sharif in Jamshoro district, Mr Shah is a civil engineer by profession as after his graduation from the NED University he joined the Water and Power Development Authority as an engineer. He joined the Port Qasim Authority as an executive engineer and later went to the United States where he studied structural engineering and economic engineering from Stanford University. He also served as a director of the Fish Harbour Authority.

He was elected as the chief minister for the first time in 2016 when the PPP decided to replace Syed Qaim Ali Shah.

During the last 22 months as the CM, he carried out major projects not only in the interior of Sindh but also in Karachi under two special packages.

The first package was of Rs10 billion and he managed to utilise over Rs7bn in his tenure.

The second Karachi package was of Rs12bn which was being implemented when the caretaker government, on the instructions of the Election Commission of Pakistan, stopped work on it.

The bus rapid transit project, construction of main arteries in the city and beautification of traffic islands, renovation work, the modernisation of transport system all remain incomplete.

Before becoming the CM, he had served the province as irrigation and energy minister and finance minister. He was the irrigation minister in 2010 when Sindh faced floods.

Before 2013 general elections he was declared ineligible to contest the election as he possessed dual nationality. He later surrendered his Canadian nationality and after getting clearance from a court he contested a by-election and became a member of the Sindh Assembly again.

Published in Dawn, August 18th, 2018