ISLAMABAD: Senator Ishaq Dar of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has been sworn in as the nation’s sixth finance minister since the last general elections, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said in a statement.
President Arif Alvi administered the oath to Dar during a ceremony at the presidency, which was also attended by the prime minister, in a sign seen as a major ice-breaker between the ruling PML-N and the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI).
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Following the ceremony, Sharif called on Alvi at his office to discuss the “overall situation in the country”, the Associated Press of Pakistan reported.
“The overall situation of the country was discussed during the meeting,” the report said, quoting the press wing of the presidency.
It is Dar’s fourth stint as finance minister, and he will have to deal with some of the worst economic turmoil the nation has faced.
Dar, who currently holds a seat in the upper house of Parliament, was given the job after his predecessor Miftah Ismail quit, the fifth holder of the post to leave in less than four years amid persistent economic turbulence.
He was inducted into the cabinet a day after being sworn in as a member of the Senate. Dar, who remained in self-exile in the United Kingdom since 2017, was elected in absentia as a senator on a technocrat seat from Punjab in March 2018 but did not take oath due to his stay in London.
The Supreme Court disqualified him from office in July 2017 after an investigation into the undisclosed wealth of now-deposed prime minister Sharif and his family.
In 2017, an accountability court declared Dar a proclaimed offender for his continued absence from proceedings in a corruption reference against him. Last week, a court in Islamabad suspended until October 7 his arrest warrant in the case, paving way for his return.
He is taking office, for the fourth time — from 1998-99, 2008 and 2013-17 — with the challenge of getting the economy out of one of its worst balance of payment crises that has seen foreign reserves falling to a month of imports.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) board last month approved the seventh and eighth reviews of a bailout programme approved in 2019, allowing for a release of over $1.1 billion.
TALL CLAIMS, PLUMMETING RUPEE
Dar, after his return on Monday, said he wanted to get Pakistan out of its economic rut and stressed he wanted a strong and stable rupee. He has favoured an artificially overvalued currency in his previous tenures as finance minister.
“The Dar factor is at play. There are memories of how he kept the dollar rate stable,” said Fahad Rauf at Ismail Iqbal Securities.
“There is no way (the rupee) can sustainably move against the tide in the current scenario,” Rauf said in reference to the dollar strengthening against all currencies.
Ahead of his formal appointment, the rupee had risen throughout the day after reports that he would take up the role, a change that comes in the midst of an economic crisis in Pakistan that has been exacerbated by deadly floods.
“Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has asked me to accept the responsibilities of finance minister,” Dar said in a statement broadcast on Pakistan Television on Monday evening. “By the grace of Allah, I will try my best to get Pakistan out of this economic rut.”
During a previous tenure ending in 2017, Dar claimed Pakistan was going to become the world’s 18th strongest economy, but the country is facing economic turmoil, exacerbated by widespread floods estimated to have cost it nearly $30 billion.
— With Reuters
