ISLAMABAD: President Arif Alvi on Thursday appointed Ahad Cheema, a former civil servant and senior bureaucrat, as Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s adviser on establishment.
Cheema’s was the first high profile arrest in Punjab by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) before the general elections of 2018. The bureau had arrested him on February 21, 2018, when he appeared before its investigation team in an inquiry about Ashiana-i-Iqbal Housing Scheme.
Later, the NAB also initiated inquiries regarding the LDA City scam and assets beyond means against him. He was granted bail in all three cases in April last year. A notification issued by the Cabinet Division Thursday states: “In exercise of the power conferred by clause (1) of Article 19 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the president, on the advice of the prime minister, has been pleased to appoint Ahad Khan Cheema, as Adviser to the Prime Minister on Establishment, with the status of federal minister, with immediate effect.”
The development comes days after Cheema resigned from the civil service while expressing his distrust of his employer, the government of Pakistan, for acting as a silent spectator when he was roped into a “politically motivated campaign spearheaded by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) ahead of the 2018 general election and his ordeal all along”.
The newly-appointed minister had served 38 months (Feb 2018 to April 2021) in jail while being under trial in different NAB references.
On June 4, the Prime Minister’s Office accepted the resignation/ retirement from service.
