PM Imran Khan finalises names of 21-member Pakistan cabinet

Islamabad: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has approved a 21-member federal cabinet, which will be sworn-in on Monday in Islamabad, according to state-run Radio Pakistan.

Sixteen of the 21 members have been designated as ministers, while five others will assume duties as advisers to the premier, an official announcement by the PM’s office said.

Seven of the 16 ministers belong to the coalition parties whose support was required by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI) to win the prime ministerial election.

PTI vice-chairman Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi has been appointed as the country’s new foreign minister, a position where he had previously served during the 2008-13 tenure of PPP government.

Qureshi resigned from PPP as well as from his National Assembly seat in 2011 after developing differences with the party leadership.

Asad Umar, a business analyst and former CEO of Engro Polymer and Chemicals, will serve as minister for finance and revenue.

Dr Shireen Mazari, PTI loyalist and former editor of Pakistani daily English newspaper The Nation, has been given the portfolio of human rights.

Mazari is a graduate of the London School of Economics who received her doctorate from Columbia University.

The portfolio of the information and broadcasting has been allocated to PTI’s information secretary Fawad Chaudhry, a lawyer by profession who had also previously served as spokesman for Gen Musharraf’s All-Pakistan Muslim League.

Senator Farogh Naseem of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), who had served as the youngest advocate-general of Sindh, has been has been assigned the portfolio of Law and Justice. Dr Fehmida Mirza, Pakistan’s first woman speaker of the National Assembly during the PPP government from 2008 to 2013, has been named as Minister for Inter-provincial Coordination.

Zubaida Jalal, the only woman elected to the National Assembly from Balochistan, on a Balochistan Awami Party ticket, will serve as minister of defence production.

Makhdoom Khusro Bakhtiyar, who earlier served as minister of state for foreign affairs, has been appointed minister for water resources.

Bakhtiyar has an LLB degree from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a Bar-at-Law degree from Lincoln’s Inn UK.

The 21-member cabinet includes many old faces such as former Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chief minister Pervez Khattak who will be the country’s new defence minister.

Awami Muslim League chief (AML) chief Shaikh Rashid Ahmad has managed to retain the portfolio of railways, a position he had previously held between 2006 and 2007.

Former PTI information secretary Shafqat Mehmood will be minister of federal education and professional training with the additional charge of national history and literary heritage division.

Ghulam Sarwar Khan will serve as minister of petroleum division, while Aamir Mehmood Kiyani has been handed the national health services, regulations and cordination portfolio.

Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui is the new information technology minister, while Chaudhary Tariq Bashir Cheema is minister for states and frontier Regions and Noorul Haque Qadri will oversee religious affairs and interfaith harmony.

The team of advisers includes Mohammad Shehzad Arbab for establishment division, Abdul Razzaq Daud for commerce and textiles, Dr Ishrat Hussain (former governor of the State Bank of Pakistan) for institutional reforms and austerity, Amin Aslam (the architect of PTI’s Billion Tree project) for climate change and Babar Awan for parliamentary affairs.

Khan and his new cabinet face a myriad of challenges including looming economic crisis, water and energy issues, extremism, water shortages, and joblessness among others.