ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Finance Minister Miftah Ismail on Sunday said he would formally resign from the role, after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif decided to task his party’s financial wizard Ishaq Dar with the responsibility.
The announcement by Ismail comes at a time when Pakistan is grappling with a widening current account deficit, currency depreciation and a 47-year high inflation that hit 27.3 percent in August.
The economic crisis is exacerbated by deadly floods that have killed more than 1,600 people and affected 33 million others, with officials estimating nationwide losses at $30 billion.
Ismail said he “verbally resigned” from the post in a meeting with PM Sharif and his elder brother, Nawaz Sharif, three-time former prime minister, in London.
“I have verbally resigned as Finance Minister,” the Pakistani finance minister said on Twitter Sunday night.
“I will tender a formal resignation upon reaching Pakistan. It’s been an honor to serve twice as Finance Minister.”
Ismail and PM Sharif are expected to return to Pakistan early this week.
Dar, a finance minister in Nawaz’s cabinet and an influential figure in his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party, has been in exile for five years.
He had left the country for the United Kingdom to seek medical treatment after the Supreme Court disqualified Nawaz in October 2017 for not declaring a small source of income. The court had ordered an investigation into Sharif, his children and Dar, who is also Nawaz’s former accountant.
Dar himself was disqualified from office by the Supreme Court in 2017. Months after leaving for London, Dar was charged in absentia by an anti-corruption court in Pakistan for amassing wealth beyond known sources of income.
The former finance tzar says the case against him was politically motivated.
Ismail is the fifth finance minister to be replaced in less than four years amid years of political and economic turbulence in the South Asian country.
The devastating floods that hit late last month have fanned fears that Pakistan would not meet its debts.
On Friday, Ismail reassured investors that the South Asian country would not seek any relief from commercial banks or Eurobond creditors, after PM Sharif requested wealthy countries for a “substantial debt relief.”
