Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: DMG officers Shahid Mehmood and Azmat Ranjha are hot favourites for the slot of Finance Secretary, Daily Times has learnt.

Rehmatullah Wazir and Khawaja Tanveer are in the line for the slot of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) chairman.

Sources said the government is considering appointing Grade-21 officer Shahid Mehmood as the Finance Secretary.

Mehmood is currently serving as adviser to the International Monetary Fund’s Executive diDrector since February 2015. Before assuming the position in IMF, Mehmood was working as a special assistant to Finance Minister Ishaq Dar.

Mehmood came to Pakistan last week and met Dar, sources added.

Source said the Establishment Division has proposed three names to the Prime Minister for the Finance Secretary’s slot. The officials are Economic Affair Division Secretary Tariq Bajwa, Commerce Secretary Azmat Ranjha and Shahid Mehmood.

Finance Secretary Dr Waqar Masood may replace Mehmood at the IMF because he helped the government in clearing the three-year IMF $6.6-billion programme which ended in September 2016.

Former FBR chairman Tariq Bajwa will retire on June 18. Azmat Ranjha and Shahid Mehmood will retire on January 9 and 6, 2018 respectively.

Rehmatullah Wazir and Khawaja Tanveer are being considered for the FBR chairman’s slot because Grade 22-officer Dr Irshad will retire on April 22.

IR Intelligence and Investigation Director General Khawaja Tanveer will retire in December 2017.

FBR Chairman Nisar Muhammad Khan is going to retire on January 7 and the government has no plan to give him an extension. The FBR under the leadership of Nisar had achieved the tax target of Rs 3,104 billion during the fiscal year 2015-16.

Wazir had previously worked as a chief commissioner at LTU and chief commissioner IR, RTO Karachi and he showed progress in revenue collection and introduced policies to widen the tax net. A large number of new taxpayers were brought into the tax net in his tenure as chief commissioner. The government’s economic team of the government will be retired in 2017.