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Pakistan’s caretaker ministers come with diverse profiles

Pakistan is set to hold both parliamentary and provincial assembly elections on July 25. (AFP)
Updated 06 June 2018
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Pakistan’s caretaker ministers come with diverse profiles

Updated 06 June 2018
Arab News Pakistan

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s caretaker cabinet ministers come with diverse experience and are renowned figures in their own fields.

Abdullah Hussain Haroon, Caretaker Minister for Foreign Affairs, Defense and Defense Production.
Haroon served as Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations from September 2008 to December 2012.

A scion of the Haroon family, he is a renowned businessman, social activist, and former Sindh Assembly speaker, who was a board member of several educational institutes, sports associations, and charity organizations.

Haroon’s career in public service began as the election Coordinator for Pakistan Muslim League in 1970. He was councillor for Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) between 1979 and 1985.

He served as Member of Provincial Assembly (MPA) Sindh (1985–1988), Trustee Karachi Port Trust (KPT) (1980–1982), Speaker of Sindh Assembly (1985–1986) and leader of opposition in the Sindh Assembly (1986–1988).

In 2008, he was elected as Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the United Nations, replacing veteran Munir Akram.

Dr. Shamshad Akhtar, Caretaker Minister for Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs, Statistics, Planning, Development and Reform.
Akhtar has 37 years’ experience of leading multilateral institutions including the United Nations, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. She has also served as Governor of Central Bank of Pakistan.

Her has development experience in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. Areas of expertise range from macroeconomic policy management to sector specific policies, legal and regulatory frameworks, development and implementation.

She has advised various governments and the private sector in public and private sector governance, poverty, privatization, public-private partnerships, energy, agriculture, and other sectors.

As Pakistan’s Governor of Central Bank, she was nominated Asia’s Best Central Bank Governor by the Emerging Market Groups in 2006 and Bankers Trust in 2007. In 2008 she was nominated in the top ten of Asia’s Women by the Asian Wall Street Journal.

Barrister Syed Ali Zafar, Caretaker Minister for Information and Broadcasting.
Former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan (2015-16), he is currently the President of Pakistan chapter of SAARCLAW (South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation in Law).

Zaffar is a senior partner at his law firm, Mandviwalla & Zafar, one of the largest and leading law firms of Pakistan with offices in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad.

Prof. Mohammed Yusuf Shaikh, Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training.
He will hold the additional portfolios of Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination Ministry of Religious Affairs and Interfaith Harmony
Shaikh served as general staff officer and instructor at Pakistan Military Academy at Kakul and principal/project director at Public School Sukkur, Public School Gadap in Karachi, Cadet College Larkana and other educational institutes.

Ms. Roshan Khursheed Bharucha, Ministry of Human Rights, Ministry of Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit Baltistan and Ministry of States and Frontier Regions
She worked as Provincial Minister (2000-2002) in the Government of Balochistan in the departments of Social Welfare, Informal education, Human Rights, Youth, Information, Population, Information Technology. She was a Senator in Senate of Pakistan between 2003 and 2006.

Her social work includes helping foreign prisoners in Balochistan who are retained in the jails after completion of their punishment due to factors such not having an airplane ticket.

She opened small libraries in each of the 22 districts of Balochistan through the help of non-governmental and government agencies.

Mohammed Azam Khan Caretaker Minister for Interior, Capital Administration and Development Division Ministry.
A former bureaucrat, he served as Minister for Finance, Planning and Development in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa (KP) province from 2007 to 2008.

Azam Khan also served as UNDP Adviser to the Lachi Poverty Reduction Project (LPRP) for ten years from 1997, National Project Coordinator UNDP, Lachi Poverty Reduction Project. (LPRP).

He also worked as Chairman of Pakistan Tobacco Board, Ministry of Commerce, Government of Pakistan, Peshawar.

As a bureaucrat, he served as Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources, Secretary Ministry of Religious Affairs, and Chief Secretary, Government of KP from 1990 to 1993.

Topics: latest news in english international news Pakistan

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Guatemalans enter state of siege over surge in gang violence

Updated 2 sec ago
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Guatemalans enter state of siege over surge in gang violence

Updated 2 sec ago
GUATEMALA CITY: Streets were half-empty Monday in the capital city of Guatemala, where outrage and fear lingered during the first day of the 30-day state of emergency decreed by the government in response to the murder of nine police officers and riots in several prisons.
On Sunday, suspected members of the notorious Barrio 18 gang carried out a wave of attacks on the police after security forces put down a prison mutiny.
Eight officers were killed on Sunday and a ninth died of his injuries on Monday.
President Bernardo Arevalo declared a 30-day emergency on Sunday over the violence, which caused deep shock among Guatemalans.
On Monday, he presided over a memorial ceremony for the slain police officers at the interior ministry.
The streets of the capital Guatemala City were semi-deserted and private schools, courts and universities remained shuttered.
Sitting on a bench in the historic center of Guatemala City, an octogenarian told AFP that he believed the only way to stamp out criminal gangs was by “burning them.”
“A criminal caught, a criminal killed, because there’s no other way...It’s like a tree; if you don’t pull out the roots, it will sprout again,” the man, who gave only his last name, Espana, said.
He called for Guatemala’s government to emulate the iron-fisted policies of President Nayib Bukele of neighboring El Salvador.
Bukele has imprisoned tens of thousands of men without charge, as part of a war on gangs which has led to a sharp drop in El Salvador’s murder rate but caused an outcry over human rights abuses.
Alejandra Donis, a 30-year-old shopkeeper, also held Bukele up as an example of leadership.
“There was a point in El Salvador where it was scary to just go out, right? And now it’s a place that’s quite touristy; you can go there, and it feels peaceful,” she said.

- ‘The Wolf’ -

The unrest in Guatemala began when inmates at three prisons took 45 guards and a psychiatrist hostage on Saturday to demand gang leaders be transferred from a maximum-security prison to more lenient facilities.
On Sunday, the police and army stormed all three penitentiaries and restored control.
After the first prison raid, the interior ministry published a video on X showing officers handcuffing and leading away Barrio 18’s alleged leader in Guatemala, whom authorities identified as Aldo Dupie, alias “El Lobo” (The Wolf).
In response to the crackdown, gang members attacked police stations and patrols.
The coffins of the slain police officers were draped in Guatemalan blue-and-white flags at the interior ministry and flanked by colleagues in uniform, standing to attention.
Arevalo, dressed in a black suit, greeted the grieving relatives, hugging some.

- FBI help sought -

Barrio 18 and the rival gang Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) are blamed for much of the drug trafficking and criminal violence that plague Central America.
Washington has declared both to be terrorist organizations.
Arevalo said the declared state of emergency would allow the police and army to act against organized crime, but soldiers remained in their barracks on Monday, awaiting orders.
Since mid-2025, gang members have staged several uprisings in Guatemalan prisons to demand their leaders be held in less restrictive conditions.
In October, 20 leaders of Barrio 18 escaped from prison.
Only six have been recaptured, while another was shot and killed.
The government at the time asked for the help of the FBI to track down the remaining escapees.
Across Latin America, gang members continue to run criminal enterprises, from drug trafficking rings to extortion rackets, from behind bars — often with the collusion of corrupt prison officials.

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