Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: After the completion of three years of his government, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is considering changing some of his cabinet members. For this, he is reviewing the performance of federal ministers and ministers of state, and evaluating whether five year projects set in 2013 will be completed by 2018.

Sources told Daily Times that Nawaz Sharif has been in Murree for three days with the prime minister’s core team. He has been reviewing the reports regarding the performance of his cabinet members during the last three years. The PM may change his cabinet team to get the desired results for development for the next two years so he can introduce some new faces, sources said.

Sources said that the performance of Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan was praised in this review and the results of his ministry and departments were also hailed. Minister for Finance Ishaq Dar, Information Minister Pervez Rashid, and Planning and Development Minister Ahsan Iqbal’s performance was also declared satisfactory.

Federal minister for water and power Khawaja Asif, Defence Production Minister Rana Tanvir, Law Minister Zahid Hamid, and Minister for State and Frontier Regions Abdul Qadir Balochs performance were found wanting. Federal Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Sheikh Aftab may be saved owing to his 100 % attendance in parliament, while Kamran Michael may be saved because of his special status as a minority.

Minister of State for Information Technology Anosha Rehman was the only MOS ,whose performance was satisfactory over the three years, While Saira Afzal Tarar, Tariq Fazal Chaudhry, and Abid Sher Ali’s fate is in the prime minister’s hands.

Advisor for Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz’s performance was also not up to the mark and sources said the prime minister may change his cabinet team and bring in some new faces to replace the present ones.

On the other hand Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif held a 7-hour long session on Friday with his core team comprising Secretary to the Prime Minister, Military Secretary, PSO and other senior officials. The meeting took stock of three years of projects undertaken by the government. The meeting reviewed the progress on the ongoing projects and schemes, and finalised the timelines of the infrastructure development and energy sector projects envisaged to be executed during the next two years, with a monthly review.

The meeting also reviewed the ongoing projects in the four provinces in terms of the monthly milestones of the projects across the provinces. Besides, the meeting also devised a framework on accomplishments over the years. The prime minister directed that implementation of projects under the umbrella of CPEC should be top priority. He said that he would personally monitor and review the implementation of the CPEC Projects.