ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Friday approved the reconstitution of the Council of Common Interests (CCI), replacing the finance minister with the foreign minister.
President Asif Ali Zardari, on the advice of Prime Minister Shehbaz, constituted the eight-member CCI under Article 153 of the Constitution, the notification said.
The CCI is headed by Prime Minister Shehbaz and the council members include all the four chief ministers.
The announcement said Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, Defense Minister Khawaja Asif and Safron Minister Amir Muqam are also included in the CCI.
The CCI is the country’s largest decision-making forum, which decides on all those matters, including the distribution of natural resources, over which there is disagreement between the center and the provinces.
This is not the first time that PM Shehbaz has snubbed the finance minister and assigned the task to foreign minister Ishaq Dar.
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Last week, Prime Minister Shehbaz set up six separate cabinet committees for economic coordination, energy, Chinese investment projects, privatisation, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and liquidation of legislative cases.
In his decision, the Prime Minister decided to keep the ECC with him while appointing Foreign Secretary Dar to head the Cabinet Committee on Privatization.
These committees were traditionally headed by the Minister of Finance.
However, a day after the announcement and receiving backlash, PM Shehbaz reshuffled the ECC and appointed Finance Minister Aurangzeb as the head of the key economic body.
