ISLAMABAD, Aug 18: The government has appointed Dr. Tariq Hassan as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) with immediate effect.

Dr. Hassan has been working as adviser to Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz for the last four years.

The post fell vacant last year when former SECP chairman Khalid Mirza rejoined the World Bank.

Mr Mirza had spearheaded the capital market reforms after joining the SECP soon after military take-over in 1999. The finance ministry had asked him to continue heading the corporate sector regulatory authority but Mirza wanted to be compensated for benefits he was going to lose in case of premature retirement from World Bank’s commercial arm International Finance Corporation (IFC).

As the government could not meet this demand, Mirza rejoined his position in the IFC from where he was on leave. Since April this year, Abdul Rehman Qureshi, a senior SECP commissioner was looking after the job of the SECP chairman on temporary basis.