PESHAWAR -UNS: A 15-member cabinet was sworn in as the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa caretaker cabinet on Thursday, hours after KP Governor Haji Ghulam Ali issued a notification formally appointing them for the roles.
The development follows the Election Commission of Pakistan’s recommendation to the KP government to hold elections between April 15-17 in the province.
The ECP’s direction came days after Mohammad Azam Khan on Jan 21 had taken oath as the KP caretaker chief minister and Syed Mohsin Raza Naqvi’s appointment as Punjab caretaker chief minister on Jan 22.
In a notification issued today, the Governor appointed the cabinet “in exercise of the powers conferred by Article 224(1a) read with Article 105 of the Constitution”.
Article 224(1a) states that in case an assembly is dissolved under Article 58 or Article 112, “the President, or the Governor, as the case may be, shall appoint a care-taker Cabinet” provided that the “members of the federal and provincial care-taker cabinets shall be appointed on the advice of the caretaker prime minister or the caretaker chief minister, as the case may be”.
The appointed members include the following:
Abdul Haleem Qasuriya (former MPA)
Adnan Jalil (former Peshawar small industry chamber’s president)
Bakht Nawaz (University of Gujrat’s deputy registrar)
Fazal Elahi
Haji Ghufran (former senator)
Hamid Shah
Justice (Retd) Irshad Qaiser
Khushdil Khan Malik (former National Security Division additional secretary)
Manzoor Khan Afridi (businessman)
Muhammad Ali Shah (Prime Minister’s Special Assistant on Water Resources)
Advocate Sawal Nazir
Shafi Ullah Khan
Shahid Khan Khattak (former KP southern region president)
Syed Masood Shah
Taj Muhammad Afridi
The KP Assembly stood dissolved on Wednesday after the governor signed and approved the chief minister’s summary for the dissolution of the provincial legislature.
The move came days after the dissolution of the Punjab Assembly on Jan 14 as PTI Chairman Imran Khan has vowed to disassociate himself from the “current corrupt political system” by quitting the two assemblies where he was in power until recently.
As elections in the province near, the PML-N on Tuesday offered the Qaumi Watan Party the options of alliance and seat adjustments for them.
