Pakistan PM Shahbaz Sharif unveils Cabinet; Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani administers oath to new ministers

PTI

Islamabad, April 19

Pakistan Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif unveils his Cabinet on Tuesday, with Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani administering the oath to new ministers after President Arif Alvi excused himself from attending the ceremony.

The Cabinet was scheduled to take oath at 8.30 pm (local time) on Monday; however, when the Prime Minister's Office contacted the President's Office, Alvi refused to administer oaths, Geo TV reported.

Senate Chairman Sanjrani was summoned in his capacity as the acting President on Tuesday to administer the oath to the new Cabinet, The Express Tribune newspaper reported.

Last week, Sanjrani administered the oath of office to Prime Minister Sharif after President Alvi, a member of ousted premier Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, went on 'sick' leave ahead of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) leader's inauguration.

A source in the government said President Alvi would not attend Tuesday's ceremony, the Dawn newspaper reported.

The source said President Alvi will again go on leave on Tuesday on the pretext of an illness so that Sanjrani could perform the duty, it said.

The federal government claimed to have addressed “reservations” of the allies in the ruling coalition after which the first phase of the long-awaited induction of a 34-member cabinet took place.

Earlier, the PML-N was to take the ministries of information, finance, interior, planning and development, energy, trade, establishment, cabinet, national security, inter-provincial coordination, law and justice and parliamentary affairs, The Express Tribune said.

The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), a major ally of the government, was supposed to get the ministries of foreign affairs, water resources, health, human rights, education, climate change, communications, industries and production, besides the head of the Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP).

The PPP members who were expected to take oath as ministers are: Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Hina Rabbani Khar, Naveed Qamar, Shazia Marri, Saleem Mandviwala, Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, Mahesh Malani, Syed Khursheed Shah, Qadir Patel, and Fazal Shah.