Speculation ends: Twelve new K-P ministers take oath

PTI gets 7, JI 3, QWP 3 slots; absence of women glaring.

PESHAWAR:

Weeks of jockeying for cabinet positions in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government ended on Thursday after 12 new provincial ministers were sworn in at Governor House Peshawar.

One glaring omission is the lack of women in the K-P cabinet. However, sources reveal that up to five MPAs may be appointed as advisers to Chief Minister Pervaiz Khattak and they may include one or two female members.

The race among aspirants for positions in the cabinet had set off speculation after the newly formed coalition government in K-P failed to finalize names and portfolios of provincial ministers.

With the induction of new ministers, the strength of the K-P cabinet now stands at 15. Jamaat-e Islami’s (JI) Siraj ul Haq and Qaumi Watan Party’s (QWP) Sikandar Sherpao, had earlier taken oath as senior ministers in the cabinet, alongside Chief Minister Khattak.

The new ministers, who were sworn in by Governor Engineer Shaukat Ullah Khan, include Pakistan Tehreek-e Insaaf’s (PTI) Shaukat Ali Yousafzai as Minister for Information, Culture and Sports, with additional charge for Ministry of Health. Yousaf Ayub Khan as Minister for Communication and Works, Ali Amin Gandapur as Minister for Revenue, Shah Farman as Minister for Public Health Engineering, Mohammad Atif as Minister for Education and Mehmood Khan as Minister for Excise and Taxation.



New ministers belonging to QWP include Bakht Baidar Khan as Minister for Industries and Labour, and Malik Ibrar Hussain Khan as Minister for Environment.

Similarly, JI ministers who took oath on Thursday include Inayat Ullah Khan as Minister for Local Government and Haji Habibur Rahman as Minister for Ushar, Zakat and Social Welfare.

Israr Ullah Khan Gandapur, who now is part of PTI, has been allotted the portfolio of law and parliamentary affairs, while Shehram Khan Tarakai of AJIP has been appointed Minister of Agriculture.

The portfolios of both the senior ministers have already been notified with Sherpao to serve as Minister for Irrigation, Power and Energy, while Siraj will take over as Minister for Finance.

A number of portfolios including planning and development, information technology, higher education, women development and population welfare, transport, housing, livestock and fisheries, food, inter-provincial coordination and archives have not been allotted to any cabinet member thus far. It is believed that these portfolios will likely be assigned to new advisers to be inducted in the cabinet.

Cabinet delay

The formation of the provincial cabinet took considerable time. Controversy erupted between coalition partners after JI Chief Syed Munawar Hassan’s statement that his party would have three ministries in the KP cabinet including education, usher and zakat and the finance.

After the announcement, unexpected backlash from fervent PTI supporters led to the PTI leadership declaring that the education ministry would not be given to JI.

While the dispute between the two coalition partners over the ministry of education did not unravel into an all-out tussle for power, the complication resulted in several rounds of meetings between PTI chief Imran Khan and JI leader Sirajul Haq, after which JI agreed to let the education portfolio remain with PTI. However, a few days ago Sirajul Haq announced that the final decision over the education portfolio had been reached and that JI would take the local government ministry instead.


Published in The Express Tribune, June 14^th, 2013.