SBP governor asked to resign, FBR chairperson removed post-Asad Umar exit

ISLAMABAD: The top bosses of Pakistan’s central bank and the state revenue body were said to have been asked to step aside, sources familiar with the matter informed, in what comes as another major reshuffle in the government’s economic wing.

State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Governor Tariq Bajwa was asked to tender his resignation, which he did, the sources said, to the PM Secretariat through the finance ministry after Prime Minister Imran Khan sought his removal from the top post at the central bank.

Sources further said the federal government has also removed Dr Muhammad Jehanzeb Khan from the position of chairperson of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR). The decision to do so, they added, had already been taken when Asad Umar was still serving as the country’s then-finance minister.

They said that Khan had refused to own the Asset Declaration Scheme, and had claimed that the scheme was prepared on the instructions of the prime minister.

PM Office sources said the FBR chairperson’s refusal to own the scheme had irked the prime minister.

Former president Mamnoon Hussain had made Tariq Bajwa the governor of the SBP on July 7, 2017, for a three-year period, which was supposed to end in 2020.