RIYADH, 12 August 2007 — Pakistan’s Privatization and Investment Commission Secretary Arif Mansur and his wife, who were visiting the Kingdom for Umrah, died in a fatal road accident on the Makkah-Madinah Expressway on Thursday.
Sources at the Pakistan Consulate in Jeddah told Arab News that Mansur’s car overturned early in the morning some 140 km from Makkah close to Sittara Valley. The couple’s three children were also traveling in the car. Their younger son, Akmal, 20, and daughter Sabahat, 24, received serious head injuries and are in intensive care at the Rabigh General Hospital.
The couple’s older son, Nabeel, suffered minor injuries and is reported to be in stable condition. The bodies of Mansur and his wife have been shifted to Shi’sha Hospital in Makkah.
A spokesman from the Pakistan Consulate said the consulate was waiting for the relatives of the deceased to decide whether to send the bodies to Islamabad or bury them in Makkah.
The spokesman added that the mission was looking after the interests of the survivors.
The driver of the car, who was reported to have been driving at high speed, suffered minor injuries.
Mansur joined the Privatization and Investment Ministry on March 7. He had previously served as additional secretary (budget) in the Finance Division from November 2003 to March 2007. He also served as deputy auditor general, international relations and coordination director general and research and development director general. He also set up a self-reliant secretariat for the Public Accounts Committee in the National Assembly in 1988.
He served as a second secretary at the Pakistani Embassy in Washington DC. He also received training in budgeting and financial management in the public sector from John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.
Pakistan Ambassador Shahid Karimullah offered condolences to the relatives of the deceased and prayed for the early recovery of the couple’s injured children.
