KARACHI: The Finance Minister, Mr Mohammad Shoaib, is relinquishing his post in the Cabinet to join the World Bank as Adviser and his relinquishment has been agreed to by the President “reluctantly”.

President Ayub Khan has appointed Mr N.M. Uqaili, Managing Director of the Pakistan International Credit and Investment Corporation, to succeed Mr Shoaib. Mr Uqaili will join the Cabinet on July 25, a month before Mr Shoaib is due to leave the Government where he served for eight years, rendering “outstanding service to the country”, to quote the President.

President Ayub Khan announcing the relinquishment of the post by Mr Shoaib said in a statement yesterday: “For some time now, Mr M. Shoaib, Finance Minister, has been requesting me for permission to retire from the Cabinet. I have so far been persuading him to continue in service since, in my opinion, he has rendered, during the last eight years, outstanding service to the country and his departure from the Cabinet would be a loss to our economic effort. For personal reasons and having performed this very arduous task for so many years, he has once again asked for his release. I have now reluctantly agreed to his leaving the Cabinet on the 25th of August to join the World Bank as an Adviser.”

[Meanwhile, as reported by our Staff Correspondent,] in the 11-mile port area stretching from the Thole Produce Yard near the City Railway Station to the West Wharf, KPT [Karachi Port Trust] workers have gone on strike affecting the movement of ships. About 2,300 workers are on strike from 6 a.m. yesterday.

In all, 23 ships have been affected by the strike, which the KPT Chairman described as “illegal and very peculiar”.

Published in Dawn, July 13th, 2016