PTI appoints Shafqat Mehmood as information secretary

Naeemul Haque accommodated as chief of staff to PTI chief

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Friday appointed senior leader Shafqat Mehmood as the party’s central information secretary.

Mehmood has replaced Naeemul Haque, who has been accommodated as ‘chief of staff’ to Imran Khan.

Mehmood, a Harvard graduate and PTI member of National Assembly from Lahore, had previously served as the party’s information secretary from December 2011 to March 2013. He quit the post to contest the general elections of 2013 on PTI ticket.

“PTI faces mammoth tasks during this election year. I am honoured to be asked by chairman Imran Khan to become his chief of staff, once again,” said outgoing information secretary Haque.



A party leader said the work burden is increasing at the chairman’s secretariat as the general elections are fast approaching. “PTI is planning to initiate in coming days the process of finalising its candidates for national and provincial assemblies,” he said, adding a trusted man was needed by Khan at his office to cope with the workload. He also claimed that Haque, who is also a founding member of the PTI, feels comfortable while working directly under Khan.

Mehmood joined politics through the platform of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) in early 1990s after quitting civil service. During his time in civil service he served as deputy commissioner in Gujranwala, DG Khan and other cities. He also served as additional secretary finance in Punjab during 1988-89 and later served as joint secretary PM’s Secretariat from 1989 to 1990.

He was elected as a senator from Sindh in March 1994 on PPP ticket. During the military regime of General (retd) Pervaiz Mushrraf he also served as Punjab information minister in 1999-2000. Later, he resigned and started writing for an English daily. In his writings he used to criticise the PTI and its chief for their way of politics, but later in 2011 he join the PTI.

He also served as the party’s district organiser in Lahore but resigned from the post following PTI’s poor performance in local government elections in Lahore in 2015.



Indeed, the head of PTI media wing Iftikhar Durrani, who used to collaborate with newsmen during the time of Haque, would continue to work under the new arrangement and new information secretary. Like Haque, Mehmood’s role would also be limited to representing party in current affairs programmes on televisions or issuing policy statements through party’s media wing.