{"id":2952,"date":"2019-04-19T08:01:39","date_gmt":"2019-04-19T08:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/?p=2952"},"modified":"2019-04-19T08:01:39","modified_gmt":"2019-04-19T08:01:39","slug":"frustrated-penniless-imran-cuts-minister-to-size","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/?p=2952","title":{"rendered":"Frustrated, penniless Imran cuts minister to size"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Islamabad,<\/strong>\u00a0Asad Umar was removed as Pakistan Finance Minister after mounting criticism over the state of the economy. In a tweet, Umar said the move was &#8220;part of a cabinet reshuffle&#8221; and that Prime Minister Imran Khan offered him the energy portfolio.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As part of a cabinet reshuffle, (the) Prime Minister desired that I take the Energy Minister portfolio instead of finance. However, I have obtained his consent to not take any cabinet position.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I strongly believe @ImranKhanPTI is the best hope for Pakistan and insha Allah will make a Naya Pakistan,&#8221; he tweeted.<\/p>\n<p>The Express Tribune reported that Umar had resigned from his position in the cabinet.<\/p>\n<p>The change in the Finance Ministry comes at a time when Pakistan is in the middle of negotiating a new relief package with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Umar had just returned from a trip to Washington during which details of Pakistan&#8217;s next IMF bailout were finalised, documented and signed.<\/p>\n<p>He had said earlier an IMF mission was expected to visit Islamabad before month end to work out technical tables since all major issues had been settled and documented.<\/p>\n<p>After resigning from his post, Umar told reporters, &#8220;it was time to make some difficult decisions to stabilise the economy&#8221; and that he hopes his replacement would be supported in his efforts.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This does not mean I am not available to forward PTI&#8217;s vision for &#8216;Naya Pakistan&#8217;. I am and will always be available to forward the interests of the country,&#8221; Umar said.<\/p>\n<p>Pakistan Muslim League (N) leader and Umar&#8217;s brother Mohammad Zubair while speaking to DawnNewsTV said he hoped &#8220;whoever comes now will take a running start and implement the things that need to be done&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Imran Khan&#8217;s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government in general and the Finance Minister in particular have been facing mounting criticism by opposition, the business community and citizens over the handling of economic crisis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Islamabad,\u00a0Asad Umar was removed as Pakistan Finance Minister after mounting criticism over the state of the economy. In a tweet, Umar said the move was &#8220;part of a cabinet reshuffle&#8221; and that Prime Minister Imran Khan offered him the energy portfolio. &#8220;As part of a cabinet reshuffle, (the) Prime Minister desired that I take the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2953,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2952","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-international"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2952"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2954,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2952\/revisions\/2954"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ncrfrontlinenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}