The Cabinet Committee on State-Owned Enterprises (CCoSOEs) approved several significant board-level appointments on Wednesday, including the nomination of Aasim Aziz Siddiqi as Chairman of the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) and Shoaib Mir Memon as Chairman of the Pakistan Reinsurance Company Limited (PRCL).
The decisions were made during a meeting held at the Finance Division, chaired remotely by Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue, Senator Muhammad Aurangzeb. According to a statement from the Finance Division, the committee considered and approved the proposal from the Ministry of Commerce to fill vacant positions on TCP’s Board.
The committee confirmed the appointment of Aasim Aziz Siddiqi as Chairman of TCP, Ayesha Aziz as Independent Director, and Shoaib Mir Memon as Chairman of the Board of PRCL. Additionally, the committee recommended that relevant ministries, including the Finance Division, review and streamline the appointment process for board positions in state-owned enterprises.
In a bid to avoid administrative delays, the CCoSOEs advised that the appointment process be initiated well in advance of the incumbents’ retirement to ensure smooth transitions and continuity of operations.
The committee also approved the appointment of three ex-officio members to the Board of Directors of Postal Life Insurance Company Ltd, as proposed by the Ministry of Communications. The ministry was instructed to submit a summary for the nomination of the chairman from among the four independent directors already serving, in order to facilitate the board’s operations and move forward with the restructuring and potential winding-up of the company, which remains on the privatisation list.
Furthermore, the committee reviewed a proposal from the Ministry of Industries and Production for the reconstitution of the Board of Directors of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA). The committee approved a panel of six private sector members to serve as independent directors, including representatives from Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, women’s representation, and the development sector.
The meeting concluded with a briefing from the Ministry of Science and Technology on the restructuring and renaming of the Scientific and Technological Development Corporation of Pakistan, which will now be called the Indigenous Research and Development Agency (IRADA), in line with a prior decision by the committee.
