Senator Shaukat Tarin has been sworn in as finance minister for a second time, Monday as the government scrambled to legitimise his authority. Shaukat Tarin was first appointed finance minister on April 16 but his constitutionally permitted tenure ended on October 16, after which his post was changed from minister to prime minister s advisor on finance and revenue. The rules are that an unelected person can only hold the portfolio of a federal minister for six months without being elected a member of one of the two houses. By December 20, however, Tarin was elected a senator from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on a seat vacated by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf s (PTI) Ayub Afridi. He recei.
Pakistan’s military has agreed in a rare move to cut its hefty budget for a year to help ease the South Asian country’s “critical financial situation”, Prime Minister Imran Khan said.