ISLAMABAD: A day after the removal of Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh from the office of finance minister, Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday gave the additional charge of petroleum ministry to his special assistant on power Tabish Gauhar.

In an ongoing reshuffle in the federal cabinet, Mr Gauhar has replaced Nadeem Babar who had been asked to step down last week over last year’s fuel crisis.

In a notification, the cabinet division said the prime minister “has been pleased to re-designate Mr Tabish Gauhar, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Power as Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Power and Petroleum, on honorary basis, with immediate effect”.

Planning and Development Minister Asad Umar had earlier said Prime Minister Imran had asked Mr Babar to step down from the position for a 90-day period, during which the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) would conduct a forensic investigation into the “criminal acts” that led to the fuel crisis.

Hammad notified as finance minister

The agency was bound to submit its report within 90 days and on the basis of that report elements found involved would be prosecuted. Mr Umar further said the petroleum secretary would also be ordered to report to the establishment as soon as a decision on his replacement was made.

Mr Gauhar, a former managing director of K-Electric and a senior executive of troubled Abraaj Capital of Arif Naqvi, had replaced Shahzad Qasim as special assistant to the prime minister on power in September 2020. He is the founder and chairman of Oasis Energy, a management consultancy firm in the power and energy sector.

He has a first-class honours degree from King’s College, London, and an MBA from the Institute of Business Administration, Karachi.

Mr Gauhar had stepped down as director, chief executive officer and chairman of the KE board in 2015 after working at the organisation for over seven years.

Meanwhile, the cabinet division notified Hammad Azhar’s appointment as finance minister.

In a separate notification, the cabinet division stated that Prime Minister Imran Khan had been “pleased to assign the additional portfolio of Finance and Revenue to Mr Muhammad Hammad Azhar, Federal Minister for Industries and Production, with immediate effect”.

According to Senator Shibli Faraz, Prime Minister Imran Khan decided to bring in a new finance team in view of “the inflation that had taken place”. The senator later announced that the prime minister “gave the portfolio of finance to Hammad Azhar who is a young and able minister so that he devises policies according to the ground realities of Pakistan and the poor get relief”.

Mr Azhar is the third finance minister to be appointed since the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf came to power in 2018.

Published in Dawn, March 31st, 2021