Former finance minister Shaukat Tarin announced on Friday that he had decided to quit the PTI and politics for good, citing financial and health reasons.

Tarin told Dawn.com that the last two-and-a-half years had been “very challenging” for him, both financially and due to his “deteriorating health” after “double Covid episodes during my time in office”.

“Therefore, at the insistence of my family and friends, I have decided to resign from active politics for good and move on,” Tarin said. “Hence, I am resigning from PTI and also from the Senate of Pakistan,” he said.

“I want to thank all those colleagues and friends who have helped me along this journey,” he added.

Tarin also said that over his political career, he had helped different political parties manage the economy.

“In 2008-10 as finance minister under PPP, I helped save the country from impending default and stabilised the economy. Also concluded a consensus on National Finance Commission award after 19 years,” he said.

He went on to say that as the finance minister during the PTI government, he “clocked the best economic performance in 17 years as stated in the economic survey of Pakistan of 2022”.

Tarin said that he tried to pay back the country for the last 27 years at “great personal costs” as he followed in the footsteps of his father, a Pakistan Movement veteran.

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Tarin is the latest politician to part ways with the PTI. Over the past few months, a long list of politicians have quit the party after a nationwide crackdown was launched against it and hundreds of prominent leaders were arrested in reaction to the May 9 riots that broke out after Imran Khan’s arrest.

The most notable departures from the PTI in the aftermath of the May 9 violence have been Shireen Mazari, Asad Umar, Fawad Chaudhry, Pervez Khattak and Farrukh Habib.

Tarin was appointed the finance minister by the PTI government on April 17, 2021. However, because he was not elected to Parliament, his constitutional term ended on October 16 after which he was made the finance adviser to the prime minister.

In Dec 2021, the PTI government managed to get Tarin elected as a senator, following which he was again made the finance minister.