‘Dr T’ rejoins PM’s team as advisor

Islamabad: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s long-time trusted bureaucrat Dr Tauqir Shah has rejoined his team as an advisor in the Prime Minister’s Office.

Dr Tauqir, who served as an Executive Director at the World Bank, recently resigned from the World Bank at the prime minister’s request.

Shehbaz Sharif had expressed his desire to bring back Dr Tauqir to enhance the efficiency of his office. He has been given the status of a federal minister. While referring to files and matters, Prime Minister Shehbaz addresses Dr Tauqir as ‘Dr T’.

He has a 28-year association with the prime minister and is considered the prime minister’s most trusted aide. Dr Tauqir joined the Pakistan Administrative Service (formerly DMG) in 1991.

He was first selected by the then Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif as his deputy secretary after the officer’s reputation as a promising young officer. In the years to come, Dr Tauqeer rose through the ranks, serving as the Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister of Punjab and later as the Principal Secretary to Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

Shehbaz Sharif has publicly acknowledged his professional competence and integrity. Despite intense scrutiny of his official conduct during the regime of General Pervez Musharraf and the tenure of former NAB Chairman Javed Iqbal, no wrongdoing was ever brought against him.

Notably, he refused to take a government plot. This is a privilege that is often enjoyed by senior bureaucrats. After the end of the PDM government, Dr Tauqeer continued to work as the Principal Secretary to the caretaker Prime Minister Anwar-ul-Haq Kakar before his appointment at the World Bank.

The caretaker cabinet led by Kakar, appreciating his exceptional services, threw an extraordinary farewell party in his honor. Regarding Kakar, this newspaper reported, “Dr. Tauqeer is the most honest, hardworking, and balanced officer among all the officers I have come in contact with. His integrity cannot be questioned, and he served the federal government with utmost professionalism”.

It is also reported that after dissatisfaction with the day-to-day affairs of the Prime Minister’s Office, the Prime Minister has now included him in his team as an advisor. Dr Tauqeer is known for his balanced approach and the desired combination of the political demands of the government with the demands of legality and good governance.

He has been selected by the Prime Minister for his fearlessness, truth-telling, and policy advice on important issues.

According to media reports, the Prime Minister also feels that the Prime Minister’s Office has been lacking in dealing with the political matters of the members of parliament, especially the coalition parties, during the current PML-N government, which is making the members of parliament feel uneasy.

A civil servant who worked with Dr Tauqeer said, “Politicians like Dr Tauqeer for his dignified demeanor, composure, and deep understanding of political culture, while civil servants find him approachable, trustworthy, and someone who is always there to listen”.

Shehbaz Sharif knows that part of his success is due to Dr Tauqeer’s efficiency and crisis management skills, which is why Shehbaz chose him as his principal secretary at the age of 45. His strength lies in his freedom of advice.

In 2022, an audio leak revealed that Dr Tauqeer advised Prime Minister Shehbaz not to grant a favor that Maryam Nawaz had asked for her son-in-law.

It is also reported that over the past three decades, Shehbaz Sharif has relied so much on Dr Tauqeer that this time when Dr T left, he felt his absence.

Those who know Dr Tauqir believe that in his new role as a powerful aide to the prime minister, he will do away with the limelight.

“You will find that he is present but invisible,” said one bureaucrat. “He is liked, not feared.”

During Dr Tauqir’s tenure at the World Bank, the World Bank has pledged $40 billion to Pakistan under the Country Partnership Framework (CPF). Dr Tauqir has also held senior positions in various UN agencies, including the UNDP, ILO, and the International Trade Centre in Geneva.

A key milestone in his career was his tenure as Pakistan’s ambassador to the WTO (2015-2018), where he chaired the WTO Committee on Trade and Environment and served as a judge on a high-level panel on the trade dispute between Russia and the US.

Dr Tauqir completed his MSc as a Chevening Scholar from the University of Manchester. He is a Fellow of LEAD International, has served on the Board of Governors of LEAD Pakistan, and has received fellowships from Brown University, Duke University, and the Sustainability Challenge Foundation of the Netherlands.

Hailing from a prominent landowning family of Sangjani (Islamabad), with vast holdings in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Dr Tauqeer is respected for his humility and problem-solving mindset in the civil service.