Nomination: Two G-B councillors made PM’s advisers

Four names had been submitted to the prime minister for approval.

GILGIT:

Two members of the Gilgit-Baltistan Council have been nominated as advisers to Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, officials said on Tuesday.

“Ghulam Hussain Saleem and Wazir Ibadat have been nominated as advisers to the prime minister,” said officials, adding that both will soon be administered oath to their offices.

Saleem belongs to Skardu, also the hometown of Gilgit-Baltistan Chief Minister Mehdi Shah, while Ibadat hails from Astore Valley.

Gilgit-Baltistan’s self governance order 2009 states that two out of six members of the Gilgit-Baltistan council will be picked as advisers to the prime minister, who also chairs the council.

Sources said that four names from among six members of the Gilgit-Baltistan Council had been submitted to the prime minister for approval.

The two others, apart from Saleem and Ibadat, proposed in the list included JUI-F senior leader Attaullah Shahab and Mohammad Ibrahim.

Mehdi Shah, the sources said, had been supporting the newly nominated advisers, whose names were approved without any objection by the prime minister.

Gilgit-Baltistan Council is a body constituted to act as the Upper House. Six of its members are chosen from Gilgit-Baltistan, while an equal number of others are selected by the federal government according to its own choice of representatives for the council.



Published in The Express Tribune, August 17^th, 2011.