Filling up empty seats with questionable appointments
The recent announcement of five new non-executive directors for the State Bank of Pakistan’s Board of Governors has raised eyebrows – as has been the norm under this government. Out of seven vacant seats, five have been filled while two still await nominations. The nominees themselves – Mehmood Mandviwalla, Shahid Ahmed Khan, Nawaz Tiwana, Iskander Khan and Iqbal Hasan – are all known names, but some would say, known for the wrong reasons.
While Mandviwalla is an accomplished lawyer, his status as a sibling to the current Federal Finance Minister Saleem Mandviwalla should have detracted the government from appointing him at a point when another ex-family appointee, Tauqir Sadiq, is making headlines for all the wrong reasons. Shahid Ahmed Khan may have had a distinguished career in the United States as in the Pakistani American community and with the Democrats; but the Pakistani public has learnt to be cautious of the agenda that ‘imported’ technocrats bring – the former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz’s ability to create a financial bubble that eventually burst is the first thought that comes to mind. Can Iskander Khan, who was Pakistan Sugar Mills Association chairman when a Supreme Court intervention stopped sugar prices from skyrocketing, be tasked with the SBP’s objective of keeping inflation and the economy in check? Tiwana, a former Pakistan International Airlines office bearer and a jail-mate of the current President of Pakistan, too remains a tainted appointment.
Running the financial coffers of the State, taking decisions on interest-rates and managing the structure that sustains the economy of the country is a serious task – which has been undertaken without a full quorum in the SBP BoG for a number of years. Having lost members with significant business experience, such as former Engro CEO Asad Umar, there is a need to appoint individuals with the experience of having managed financial and business institutions – and having managed them well.
While the promise by the federal finance minister to, finally, fill the still vacant seats in the SBP BoG “within a week” is encouraging – the current appointments have not inspired much confidence amongst those observing the country’s most important financial regulator.
How can the most important state institutions be left without a full BoG’s for so long? And why is it that appointments to it, when finally made, smell of the doling out of one or another type of patronage? It appears the government is refusing to learn from Tauqir Sadiq’s unmerited appointment as Oil and Gas Regulatory Association (OGRA) chairman. Is it too much to demand that the principles of transparency and merit be followed when appointing people to the SBP BoG? It is hoped that the government has the interests of the people, not their near and dear ones, in mind when such critical decisions are made.