Finance Minister Ishaq Dar removed as head of all key economic committees

In a significant move, Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi has removed Finance Minister Ishaq Dar — a powerful and trusted aide to Nawaz Sharif — as head of all key economic committees, apparently consolidating powers of Prime Minister Office under his direct control.

The prime minister is also reported to have re-designated Miftah Ismail as his special assistant on economic affairs to be based at PM Office. He was working as chairman and minister of state for the Board of Investment with additional charge of chairman of the Privatisation Commission. It is unclear whether he will continue to head these two bodies.

The move has brought back the direct and powerful central position of the PM Office over federal ministries and divisions it had enjoyed when Shaukat Aziz was prime minister under retired Gen Pervez Musharraf’s rule. Former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani initially continued with this arrangement when Syed Naveed Qamar was finance minister and subsequently delegated the powers of the chairmanship of economic committees to former finance minister Shaukat Tarin.

Former prime minister Nawaz Sharif had delegated all economic and financial powers to Ishaq Dar who reportedly headed at one time more than four dozen committees, including those on legal, constitutional and political affairs.

Four major committees on economic issues — economic coordination, energy, privatisation and restructuring — had been reconstituted.

A senior official explained that it was the prime minister’s prerogative under the Rules of Business, 1973, to assign any subcommittee of the cabinet to anyone of his cabinet colleagues. Therefore, the Cabinet Committee on Energy (CCoE), Economic Coordination Committee (ECC), Cabinet Committee on Privatisation (CCoP) and Cabinet Committee on Restructuring (CCoR) were reconstituted by the cabinet division on the direct orders of the PM Office.

All these committees would now be headed by Prime Minister Abbasi as chairman, while Mr Dar would continue to be member of these committees.

Miftah Ismail is a Pakistani political economist who served as a member of the federal cabinet overseeing the Board of Investment. Ismail worked with the International Monetary Fund as an economist based in Washington, D.C. in the early 1990s. He returned to Pakistan to work for his family business in 1993. His family business includes the manufacturing of confectionery, biscuits, potato chips, and plastics. His family also owns substantial shares in Bank of Khyber. Ismail joined the Pakistan Muslim League in 2011 and served as the head and vice-chairman of Punjab Board of Investment and Trade in 2012 and 2013.