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WEEKLY
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| Punjab cabinet yet to be awaken |
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Sunday, May 18, 2008
THE Punjab cabinet has been functioning on its own since it was formed, without having any formal agenda while majority of the ministers are in confusion about their future course.
Insiders told The News that Punjab Chief Minister Dost Muhammad Khosa has not yet informed his cabinet members about his line of action. They said that yet the cabinet members have no knowledge of priorities of the government.
Political circles have attributed this attitude of the CM to the ongoing uncertain political situation in the country. The insiders said that there was a coalition government in Punjab, but with least official interaction between heads of the two major political parties.
While PPP’s senior minister, Raja Riaz, has crossed swords with the ruling elite over massive administrative reshuffle in the province, for not taking him in confidence, the PML-N cabinet members have also identical complaints that they were being ignored at the time of important decisions.
It has been learnt that the PML-N leadership had deliberately avoided empowering the cabinet with certain responsibilities.
The leadership wanted to keep the cabinet waiting, until the time PML-N President Mian Shahbaz Sharif was elected in by-polls, and assumed office of the chief minister of the province.
Likewise, the provincial government has yet failed in settling differences with PPP over the distribution of ministries. The insiders said that the provincial government had not yet allotted departments like Health, Education, Local Government and Communication and Works to ministers, and the departments were functioning without any vision.
Meanwhile, sources in the Civil Secretariat said that Chief Secretary Javed Mehmood had also not yet held any meeting with his brigade of secretaries, so that the vision of the provincial government be translated to them. It seemed that the CS himself was in complete dark in this regard.
The sources said that the provincial government seemed to have completely focused on transfers and postings of officers with little attention towards resolution of other problems.
They added that some important departments with no ministers but new secretaries had been left to function at the mercy of God.
It is worth mentioning that PML-N President Mian Shahbaz Sharif had pronounced before media, prior to the election of Dost Muhammad Khosa as the chief minister of Punjab, that the new CM would announce the programme of his government immediately after taking oath.
Nevertheless, since that day, the public is waiting to be taken in confidence by the CM about the priorities of his government and how it would redress their grievances.
A number of PML-N ministers, on condition of anonymity, informed The News that neither the CM nor Mian Shahbaz Sharif had taken them in confidence about the vision of the provincial government.
They said that only interaction they had with the CM took place in the first cabinet meeting that was held almost three weeks back.
in the meeting, most of the time they discussed ongoing transfers in the province, but little focus towards resolution of problems of masses vis-‡-vis poverty, price-hike, massive unemployment, electricity shortage, deteriorating law and order, poor road infrastructure and etc, the sources added.
The ministers added that it is hard for them to respond to people’s complaints regarding uncontrolled price-hike. They said the people were desperately looking towards them and that they were helpless to give them satisfactory responses.
On the other hand, the PPP ministers are also facing difficulties on the same front, that they do not have any appropriate forum to raise their complaints.
PPP Senior Minister Raja Riaz, who was most of the time at daggers drawn with the provincial government hierarchy over petty issues like transfers and posting, also seemed uncomfortable with the PML-N led government.
Political observers viewed that the minister seemed to had a hidden agenda, as he was seen moving with former Punjab Governor Khalid Maqbool, an arch rival of PML-N; and raising complaints to his party head against PML-N hierarchy and about his helplessness to the media.
Likewise, CM Punjab Dost Muhammad Khosa is also observed spending most of the time in southern Punjab.
Dost, who is being considered an interim CM, is having a little room to play. The civil and police administration is in the direct control of Mian Shahbaz Sharif who is calling the shots in the province through conducting interviews of officers.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
