ISLAMABAD; Hafeez Shaikh too ate the dust on Monday when he was shown the door by prime minister, Imran Khan, for his damaging work done to Pakistan as a finance minister.
Hafeez Shaikh, who is known as an International Monetory Fund (IMF) guy, had got the powerful portfolio of federal finanace minister when Imran Khan had sacked his buddy.. Asad Umar… for his utter disappionting performance for this key post.
Hafeez Shaikh who was once the close chap of Pervez Musharraf and Shaukat Aziz did everything to implement IMF agenda in 20s. He again took the same job of IMF sponsored economic policies when joined PTI government and exposed Imran Khan to the opposition’s criticism. Due to his highly objectionable policies , Imran Khan was accused by his political opponents of selling Pakistan’s economic soverignity to the international donors especially to IMF. As federal finance minister, Hafeez Shaukh did everything which could damage Pakistan’s economy besides promoting the culture of bonds selling and through that selling Pakistan’s golden assets to his selected dubious international investors. Hafeez Shaikh is considered specialist in it.
Shaikh not only delayed several key decisions that cost Pakistan hundreds of billions of rupees like delaying announcement of wheat support price for 2020-21 and import of the commodity last year, but also resisted Hammad Azhar who wanted to make some corrections to minimise loss done by Hafeez Shaikh to Pakistan ‘s economy. He had got removed Hammad Azhar as minister of Revenue on the context that Revenue should remain as his subordinate for smooth functioning of the Finance Division. At that point in time, Imran Khan upheld his argument and sidelined Hammad Azhar and made Revenue subordinate to Finance Division.
Now when Hafeez Shaikh has been sacked as Finance minister, his dismissal will establish Imran Khan government’s credibility, besides giving a free-hand to Hammad Azhar to do whatever is possible for protecting Pakistan’s economic interest.