ISLAMABAD, March 25: In what may have been his first official act in his new position, caretaker prime minister Mir Hazar Khan Khoso appointed Seerat Asghar Jaura as his principal secretary on Monday.

Mr Jaura, a BPS-22 district management officer, had already been working as a special secretary for outgoing prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, for whom he handled the disbursement of development funds to legislators.

This position has caused some consternation to political observers, since in its final days, the PPP government released massive amounts of development money. Colleagues in the federal bureaucracy, however, praise Jaura's integrity and his reputation as a strict financial manager, earned during his time as additional secretary for expenditures in the Ministry of Finance.

According to one federal secretary, officers in the PM secretariat "only have to oversee the implementation of decisions." As a special secretary to PM Ashraf, Jaura's responsibility would have been to "receive directives regarding government decisions to release development funds, and then ensure that those decisions were implemented." If releases were improper, it would be the Ministry of Finance that could be held accountable.

In his new position, the secretary continued, "his role will be entirely different.

He will be advising the caretaker prime minister on all the official business routed through the office. He's become the top gun in the federal bureaucracy." One of his first tasks will be to assist the caretaker prime minister in making new appointments for the posts soon to be vacated by previous political appointees.