Pakistan Finance Chief Tarin Wins Senate Election

(Bloomberg) -- Pakistan’s Shaukat Tarin has secured a seat in the Senate that will allow him to formally assume the office of finance minister as he leads negotiations for a $6 billion bailout program with the International Monetary Fund. 

A majority 87 of 122 members of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa provincial assembly voted for Tarin during Monday’s election for a vacant seat in the upper house of the parliament, state-run Pakistan Television reported. 

The win enhances his autonomy and allows Tarin to present bills in the parliament directly to increase taxes as part of conditions before the IMF approves the release of some $1 billion in the latest loan installment. The next parliament session is scheduled to start on Dec. 22. 

Tarin had been appointed as a federal minister with powers to head meetings and present the budget in parliament but became an adviser because he wasn’t able to get elected as a lawmaker within the stipulated six months. Tarin had been appointed in April after his predecessor Abdul Hafeez Shaikh lost an election for a Senate seat.

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