ISLAMABAD: The financial crunch and political compulsions have finally forced the government to cut the cabinet to size.

The People’s Party had decided at a meeting on Friday night to ‘rightsize’ the cabinet and the government had already got down to the nitty-gritty, Law Minister Babar Awan told reporters at the Supreme Court premises after attending a meeting of the Judicial Commission.

(According to television reports, the new cabinet will come into shape as early as Monday).

The off-the-cuff remarks by the law minister about a possible reshuffle, and downsizing, threw ministers into a panic. Many of them immediately started inquiring about the list of those who were likely to be axed.

Some observers interpreted the use of the term ‘rightsizing’ as a belated admission by the government that the cabinet was bloated.

The names of ministers and state ministers who will be relieved are being finalised. A source said that President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani had agreed on quite a few names, many of them were ministers of state, but the list was being kept as a closely guarded secret.

As the decision became public — courtesy the law minister — intense lobbying started within the PPP by a number of cabinet members to save their jobs. A few others also started campaigning to get a slot in the new cabinet.

A senior member of the PPP said the lobbying was bound to intensify in the next 24 hours, with the possibility that the in-fighting and lobbying may force the prime minister to either reconsider his decision or relieve only a handful of ministers.

Political observers are of the opinion that the phrase ‘rightsizing’ used by the law minister is an admission that the existing cabinet is ‘oversized’.

Size unknown

The exact size of the federal cabinet has been ambiguous, with different circles quoting different figures. The Leader of Opposition in the National Assembly Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has put the number of cabinet members at over 100.

The sources said the government might consider dissolving the entire cabinet and inducting a fresh batch of old and new faces. The cabinet size is likely to be reduced in accordance with the constitutional provision of 11 per cent of total membership of the two houses of parliament.

“The issue of rightsizing of the federal cabinet as a measure to reduce government expenditures was also discussed at two meetings between the government and PML-N teams,” confirmed Sardar Mehtab Ahmad Khan, a member of the PML-N team.

He told Dawn that the government had agreed to reduce the size either through devolution of ministries or merger of various divisions.

The size of the cabinet has already reduced after resignations by five ministers of the JUI-F and MQM. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani may issue ‘marching orders’ to those federal ministers whose ministries were devolved to the provinces last month. Another five ministries are to be devolved to the provinces by the end of February.

According to Senator Hajji Muhammad Adeel, a member of the 25-member Parliamentary Committee on Constitutional Reforms, eight more ministries will either be merged with other divisions or devolved to the provinces in the third phase.

The sources said the prime minister had at different parliamentary party meetings stressed the need for reducing the cabinet size. He even asked the ministers to send their resignations to him, but except for a few senior PPP leaders none had complied.

This attitude, the sources said, had forced the prime minister to go by the recommendations of the Implementation Commission to shed the number of ministries in accordance with the 18th Amendment.