No ministry headed by junior partners of ruling coalition among top 10

ISLAMABAD: Not a single ministry headed by the representatives of the junior partners of the ruling coalition could make it to the “top ten best performing federal ministries”, judged so by Prime Minister Imran Khan.

At the same time, an equally important element of the accountability process of reward and punishment is missing from the premier’s decision – while the poor performers were not punished or penalized and the exceptional achievers earned appreciation letters plus monetary benefits. “There is no need for imposing punishment or penalty on any minister, special assistant, advisor, their secretaries or other bureaucrats and staff as every ministry passed,” government spokesman Sadaqat Abbasi says.

An official told The News that three additional salaries were given from the peons to the federal secretaries of the first five ministries among the toppers while the remaining five top achievers got two extra salaries.

Meanwhile, Imran Khan is currently the minister-in-charge of at least ten ministries or divisions. None of them appeared in the top ten performers. They include the health ministry, cabinet division, establishment division, climate change, national security division, overseas Pakistanis and human resource development, parliamentary affairs and statistics division. Every summary of these ministries and divisions that is to be sent to the federal cabinet for consideration has to be signed by Imran Khan as their minister-in-charge if it is provided in the rules that he has to do so.

The premier is the minister-in-charge of every ministry or division which has an advisor, special assistant or minister of state or nobody has been appointed to chair it. The health ministry is run by Dr Faisal Sultan; the Establishment Division is chaired by Special Assistant Shehzad Arbab, who is the main man behind judging the performance of the ministries, Commerce and Industries is led by Advisor Razak Dawood, Climate Change is led by Minister of State Zar Taj Gul and Special Assistant Malik Amin Aslam, National Security Division by Dr Moeed Yusuf, Parliamentary Affairs by minister of state Ali Muhammad Khan and Advisor Babar Awan, Poverty Alleviation and Safety Division is presided over by Special Assistant Dr Sania Nishtar and the Statistic Division is chaired by none.

From amongst the ruling coalition partners, the Pakistan Muslim League-Q (PML-Q), which has two nominees in the federal cabinet Chaudhry Moonis Elahi and Tariq Bashir Cheema did not come up to the mark in Imran Khan’s opinion. Cheema has been a cabinet member since long while Moonis Elahi was inducted a few months back. Dr Fehmida Mirza represents the Grand Democratic Alliance (GDA) of Sindh in the premier’s team. Her ministry was also not counted among the top ten.

Technically, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) has two ministries being chaired by its nominees Aminul Haq and Dr Farogh Naseem. But it has publicly disowned Farogh Naseem, whose law and justice ministry, however, was not found satisfactory by the prime minister to be included among the top ten.

The tiniest component, the Awami Muslim League, figured in the top ten with Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid receiving the admiration certificate. However, Shahzain Bugti, who is a special assistant to the prime minister on Reconciliation and Harmony in Balochistan with the status of federal minister, was found missing from the list.

All the coalition constituents regardless of their parliamentary strengths are extremely critical for the federal government because it stays in place only because of their support; otherwise it can’t survive due to the numbers the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has in the National Assembly.

At least four awardees – Dr Sania Nishtar, Dr Shireen Mazari, Dr Moeed Yusuf and Abdul Razak Dawood – have no constituencies from where they can contest any direct election. Two of them Dr Moeed Yusuf and Razak Dawood are unelected while Dr Sania Nishtar was made senator some time back and Dr Mazari is a member of the National Assembly on a special woman seat.

The other recipients including Murad Saeed, Asad Umar, Shafqat Mahmood, Khusro Bakhtiar, Sheikh Rashid and Syed Fakhar Iman have their constituencies from where they have been winning or losing the successive national elections.