Amid cabinet reshuffle speculations subsequent to criticism on the government's performance in the first 100 days, Prime Minister Imran Khan has expressed confidence over performance of his team and decided not to change any minister, at least for now.
Prime Minister Imran Khan, who chaired the special meeting of the cabinet, was quoted as saying during the meeting, "Speculations are deliberately being made with the design to create cracks and confusion within the government." The Prime Minister was further quoted as stating that no such effort will be allowed to succeed. However, some ministers reportedly complained that bureaucracy is not implementing their orders and thereby trying to fail them.
The performance of the government during the first 100 days is being seen poor, directionless and lacking any economic roadmap how to deal with serious challenge of current account and budget deficit as so far it has been unable to roll-out much-touted reforms agenda to improve revenue collection, attract investment and reduce the losses of state-owned entities (SOEs). A statement issued after the meeting stated that meeting of the federal cabinet during its 9-hour sitting reviewed the performance of 26 ministries and decided that performance of remaining ministries would be reviewed at another date.
The Prime Minister was satisfied over the performance of ministers and decided to task each ministry with specific strategic plan for implementation, spread over five years, so that all concerned may work in tandem for optimum output. He also directed the ministries to finalise their strategies to achieve the targets set during the first 100 days.
The performance of ministries and divisions was reviewed in the light of actions already taken in terms of service delivery, austerity measures adopted and future plans of each ministry and how to improve their performance.
The cabinet meeting also decided that such review meetings would be held every three months to judge performance of the ministries, adopt midway course corrections, where required, and to ensure that overall performance of the government is on track, main aim of which is improving the quality of life of Pakistani citizens.