Salmaan Taseer.html



Salmaan Taseer is a Pakistani (Urdu: سلمان تاثیر) business tycoon and politician who is the current Governor of Punjab. He is a former Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) stalwart and has served as a minister in the caretaker cabinet of Prime Minister Muhammad Mian Soomro. Taseer is also the Chairman and CEO of the First Capital and Worldcall Group. He was appointed to the post of governor on 15 May 2008 in place of outgoing governor Lt. Gen. Khalid Maqbool.¹

Business career

Salmaan Taseer began his business career by successfully setting up two chartered accountancy and management consultancy firms KPMG, United Arab Emirates and Taseer Hadi Khalid and Co, Pakistan.

In 1994, he established First Capital Securities Corporation Limited (FCSC), a full service brokerage house, with equity participation by Smith Barney, part of Travelers group and HG Asia based in Hong Kong. Since then he has been actively involved in establishing other companies in the financial services sector as well as the telecommunications, media, insurance and real estate development sectors in Pakistan.

Under Taseer’s leadership, the First Capital/Worldcall Group has grown remarkably and the group presently operates in the areas of telecommunication, technology, retail and property development, financial services, and print and media businesses with global footprint. Taseer also owns the Daily Times and Aaj Kal newspapers, Business Plus and Wikkid Plus TV channels, Pace shopping malls and Hyatt hotel range in Pakistan.

Taseer has vast experience of specialization in merger and acquisitions, flotation, investment banking and stock market analysis and also delivered presentations on various financial issues. He has also been an author of a number of articles on Investment and Financial subjects.

He is currently also serving as a member of the Board of Export Promotion Bureau of Pakistan and on the board of USF (Universal Service Fund) Company Limited.

He is renowned drinker and have seen drinking in public gatherings. Like other leaders of pakistan, his children are enjoying the loots in foreign country.

Political career

Salmaan Taseer started his political career in his student era, as a close and active member of Zulifqar ali Bhutto's PPP in late 1960s. He quickly become a constant figure in Pakistan Youth politics. He ran movement for Zulifqar Bhutto's freedom and against his arrest and death sentence.

Taseer has also written a political biography on Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

He was selected member of Punjab Provincial Assembly (MPA) from Lahore in 1988 elections. He,however could never win elections again as he lost the election for the seat of National Assembly from NA-94 (Lahore-III) in 1990 and 1993. In 1997 elections, he tried his luck by changing the constituency and contested elections from NA-93(Lahore-II) but it only resulted in a humiliating defeat for him by a margin of more than 35,000 votes. Due to successive failures, he decided to quit popular vote politics and focused on strengthening his business.

Salmaan Taseer returned to political scene when he was selected as the Federal Minister for Industries, Production and Special Initiatives in the Caretaker setup under PM Muhammad Mian Soomro for four months in the winter of 2007-2008.

Career as Governor Punjab: 15 May, 2008 -

On 15 May 2008, Salmaan Taseer was nominated for the post of Governor of Punjab by the government of PPP to replace the incumbent Lt. Gen. (retd) Khalid Maqbool.²

After this announcement by the PPP government, Pakistan Muslim League (N), the second largest party of the coalition, expressed reservation on his appointment. PML-N leader Nisar Ali Khan maintained that his party was never consulted about this, and termed his appointment "part of conspiracy."³

However, such charges have been rejected by the pro-PPP members of the Pakistani society and also by bipartisan senior journalists (e.g. Asadullah Ghailb's column in Daily Express, 21 May 2008 and Hamid Akhtar's column in the same newspaper on 29 May 2008)⁴,who suggest that Salmaan Taseer is ably maintaining a fine balance in his handling of affairs of the Punjab Province without any political bias, and that Mr. Taseer does not have any plans to destabilize the Punjab Government of PML-N ⁵⁶

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