15-member strong: PM Khoso unveils caretaker cabinet

To be sworn in today; portfolios to be allotted later.

ISLAMABAD:

Caretaker Prime Minister Justice (retd) Mir Hazar Khan Khoso unveiled his cabinet on Monday. The interim cabinet will continue to serve until the general elections scheduled for May 11.

The 15-member cabinet is likely to be sworn in today (Tuesday), officials told The Express Tribune. Significantly, the cabinet represents all four provinces, according to an official statement issued by the Prime Minister Secretariat late Monday night.  Seven members have been chosen from Punjab, three each from Sindh and Balochistan while Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa is represented by two ministers.

The ministers are Malik Habib, Dr Mushtaq Khan, Ahmer Bilal Soofi, Dr Musaddaq Malik, Arif Nizami, Sohail Wajahat Siddique, Shahzada Ahsan Ashraf, Maqbool H Rahmatoola, Abdul Malik Kasi, Asad Ullah Mandokhel, Mir Hassan Dhomki, Dr Sania Nishtar, Feroze Jamal Shah Kakakhel, Dr Younis Soomro and Shahzada Jamal. Portfolios of these ministers have yet to be allotted.

Profiles

1. Arif Nizami is a well-known journalist. He is also Editor-in-Chief of Pakistan Today newspaper published by Nawa Media Corporation.

2. Dr Sania Nishtar is an author of Pakistan’s first health reform plan, Pakistan’s first compendium of health statistics, and the country’s first national public health plan for NCDs. She is the recipient of Pakistan’s Sitara-e-Imtiaz, a presidential award and European Societies Population Science Award, etc. Nishtar holds a fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians and a PhD from Kings College, London.

3. Ahmer Bilal Soofi is senior lawyer who did his graduation from the Government College Lahore and his LLM from the University of Cambridge in 1988. He was enrolled as an Advocate of High Court in 1988 and as an Advocate of Supreme Court in 2000.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 2^nd, 2013.