A strange choice The writer served as executive editor of The Express Tribune from 2009 to 2014 You don’t replace your finance ministers at the drop of a hat, and that too at junctures you are least expected to be taking such a decision. Nobody in his/her remotest imagination had anticipated a change of guard at the ‘Q’ block right when PTI’s first finance minister Asad Umar had just returned home from Washington after having negotiated a three-year $6 billion Extended Fund Facility with the IMF. But that is exactly what had happened when Dr Hafeez Shaikh, former finance minister in the Zardari government was brought in to replace PTI’s poster boy, Umar. And now with the annual budget only a few weeks away the government, in what appeared to be a surprise move, replaced Dr Shaikh with, of all people, another former finance minister of the Zardari government, Shaukat Tarin, and that too seemingly without any sound political or economic rhyme or reason.