Karachi: Mohammad Zubair, a financial wizard in Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s cabinet, is set to take oath as governor of Sindh province on Thursday.
He replaces the late Saeeduz Zaman Siddiqui, who died last month after serving the office for a brief period.
Zubair, son of a former Pakistani general, will be the 32nd governor of the province.
President Mamnoon Hussain has already signed the notification of Zubair’s appointment to the office.
The office fell vacant after Siddiqui, who was sworn in as the governor in November last year, died of illness on January 12.
Born on march 23, 1956 to a military family, Zubair graduated from Institute of Business Administration (IBA), a prestigious university in Pakistan and joined IBM.
He remained posted in Paris, Rome, Milan and Dubai before he quit the company as chief financial officer.
He joined the Pakistan Muslim League (PNL) of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in 2012.
He was among the main authors in preparing the economic and financial policy to be incorporated in the election manifesto of the party.
He became the chairman of the Board of Investment (BoI) in the earlier phase of the Sharif government and later on was given the portfolio of state minister of the Privatisation Board of the country.
Zubair arrived in Karachi from Islamabad on Tuesday night, for meetings with senior provincial officials, before taking oath.
Talking to the media on Wednesday he said targeted killings had reached a peak in 2013, when his party came into power.
However, the city had since become peaceful in the past three years as his party took many stringent steps to curb killings and other serious crimes in this metropolis, he said.
He said his main agenda would be the revival of Karachi’s status of economic hub of the country.
Zubair’s father, the late general Mohammad Umar, served in the Pakistan Army and played a key role in the country’s military operations in the then East Pakistan that became Bangladesh, amid a bloody civil conflict that followed full-blown war with neighbouring India in 1971.
