ISLAMABAD: As Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh has lost the Senate election against former premier Yousuf Raza Gillani, he may again become an adviser to Prime Minister Imran Khan on finance, the position he held two months ago.
As per the constitution, Shaikh, who has not been elected like other parliamentarians, will no longer be able to hold the position of a minister after six months in the portfolio. In April 2019, he was appointed as an advisor to the PM on finance, after a cabinet reshuffle by Prime Minister Imran. On 11 December 2020, Shaikh was appointed as Federal Minister of Finance and Revenue.
While most ministers have to be elected representatives – i.e. members of the National Assembly (NA) or Senate – there is a clause in the Constitution that allows for short-term appointments of non-elected ministers.
According to clause nine of Article 91 of the Constitution, a non-elected person can be appointed a federal minister for six months once during the five-year tenure of the NA.
“A minister who for any period of six consecutive months is not a member of the National Assembly shall, at the expiration of that period, cease to be a Minister and shall not before the dissolution of that Assembly be again appointed a Minister unless he is elected a member of that Assembly,” reads the clause.
This means that Sheikh will have to step down in June 2021 and resume serving as the adviser to the PM on finance.
The incumbent government had decided to make Shaikh a federal minister with the intention to elect him as a Senator to handle budgetary affairs, especially the matter related to National Finance Commission (NFC), as an adviser cannot even chair the NFC meetings.
Shaikh had to win a parliament seat to continue as the finance minister after June 11. He is a key member of the government’s economic policies and reforms plan, under the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) loan programme.
In a setback to the ruling party, Gillani, who was backed by an alliance of 11 opposition parties known as the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM), won the vote for the Senate’s seat in Islamabad. Gillani bagged 169 votes while Shaikh got 164 votes in a the neck-to-neck contest.
Earlier, Shaikh’s appointment as chairman of NFC was objected to by Sindh and some political parties, resulting in the reconstitution of the 10th NFC.
In the absence of a federal minister to chair the NFC, Prime Minister Imran, as minister in-charge, had chaired only one meeting with concerned officials of the finance ministry in almost six months.
As the finance ministry had prepared a summary for the meeting of NFC under the chairmanship of the prime minister, only one department meeting was held, in which the premier was briefed about the NFC and related issues.
According to sources, the late Benazir Bhutto was the only other prime minister who had chaired NFC meetings as the minister in-charge. The meetings are normally chaired by finance ministers.
However, when Shaikh was made the finance minister in December, the process related to NFC was resumed. An inaugural meeting of the 10th NFC, held on February 18, 2021, had constituted six sub-groups to prepare sectoral recommendations.
Presided over by incumbent Shaikh, the meeting did not set a schedule for future meetings or deadlines for completion of studies on six topics and agreed to hold discussions in future if certain terms of reference (TORs) of the NFC were outside its constitutional mandate.
The participants also noted mounting pension liabilities as a major concern and agreed to adopt a common way forward through detailed consultations. Sindh disagreed on sharing expenditure for tribal regions and showed reservations over some TORs.
As per the details, Finance Secretary Kamran Ali Akmal will coordinate two working groups on the National Economic Development Framework or Macroeconomic Framework and vertical distribution (between the Centre and provinces) of resources under the divisible pool.
All the provinces would be part of the group. Each provincial finance minister will coordinate four other groups with representation from all stakeholders.
