ISLAMABAD:

The government has finalised a panel for the appointment of Pakistan’s new executive director at the Asian Development Bank (ADB), including two women officers, after Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif decided not to allow the principal aspirants holding key domestic positions to take the lucrative foreign posting.

Government sources said Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar has shortlisted the names of three officers from the Pakistan Administrative Service (PAS) for appointment as Pakistan’s executive director at the ADB, a major lender to the country.

The principal candidate for the position is Ms Sarah Saeed, a grade-22 officer currently serving as Special Secretary in the Establishment Division. The other shortlisted candidate is Hamed Yaqoob Sheikh, former secretary finance and the incumbent secretary of the Ministry of Health. If Sheikh is not sent to Manila, he may be posted as secretary petroleum, according to the sources.

The third shortlisted candidate is Ms Nasheeta Mohsin, a grade-21 officer currently serving as Special Secretary Finance. Instead of going to Manila, there are chances that the government may send Mohsin to Washington as Pakistan’s new senior adviser to the executive director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The tenure of Pakistan’s incumbent senior adviser to the IMF, Saif Dogar, is ending soon.

A summary will now be dispatched to the Prime Minister’s Office to seek PM Sharif’s approval for making the new appointment at the ADB, the sources added.

Among the aspirants for the ADB executive director position were incumbent Secretary Finance Imdad Ullah Bosal, Chairman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Rashid Langrial and Secretary Interior Khurram Agha. However, due to their current critical roles in managing these three key ministries, the prime minister did not relieve them of their present assignments.

Saeed was recently promoted to BPS-22, the highest level in the civil service, becoming the youngest officer to reach this rank in the past five decades. She holds an MSc in Economics for Development from the University of Oxford and is a gold medallist from the University of the Punjab.

Her career includes serving as special secretary at the Prime Minister’s Office, additional secretary in the Finance Division, director general of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP), and commercial secretary at Pakistan’s mission in The Hague, besides serving as an instructor at the National School of Public Policy.

She has also worked with the UK’s Department for International Development and is a trainer for a Harvard University course on public policy. Her areas of expertise include skills development, poverty alleviation, development policy and international trade.

The tenure of outgoing executive director Noor Ahmed expired last year, but the government granted him an indefinite extension until the appointment of a new office-holder.
The position of executive director rotates between Pakistan and the Philippines for two years. The executive director represents a constituency of seven countries comprising Kazakhstan, the Maldives, Marshall Islands, Mongolia, Pakistan, the Philippines and Timor-Leste.

The ADB appoints directors to its board with effect from July 1. The board decides on policy matters for member countries and approves loans, both for budgetary support and project lending, based on requests from member states.

The ADB has remained one of the largest lenders to Pakistan. In the past, it adopted positions independent of the Bretton Woods institutions – the World Bank and the IMF. However, in recent years it has also aligned with the IMF when approving budget support loans for Pakistan.

An immediate challenge for the new executive director will be to keep ADB financing lines open and to increase the share of long-term lending, which has been shrinking. Pakistan’s gross financing requirements are estimated at around $25 billion annually.

Neutralising India at the ADB board will be another key challenge, which the outgoing executive director handled effectively. Noor Ahmed also worked to improve Pakistan’s standing among other executive directors and arranged their visits to the country.