As I had reported earlier, it's now increasingly certain that Dr. Shamshad Akhter, not Mr. Ishaq Dar, will be the finance minister in the new cabinet of Shahbaz Sharif. Good for the economy that SIFC will play a decisive role in the matters of economy, finance, privatization, foreign investment, agriculture, mining, mineral development, and information technology. It's the SIFC that desired that Dr. Shamshad Akhtar should continue as the finance minister and Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif happily agreed. At a personal level, Shahbaz Sharif is more impressed with Mohammad Aurangzeb, the HBL President, and a respectable banker. He's also very close to Salman Ahmed, former head of the renowned global strategy firm McKinsey in Pakistan. Prime Minister Shahbaz still wants to offer important positions to both Aurangzeb and Salman. It's likely that after successful negotiations with the IMF for an extended fund facility, he would have Mohammad Aurangzeb as the minister of finance.