05 September 2004	Sunday	19 Rajab 1425

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ISLAMABAD, Sept 4: Acting parliamentary leader of Pakistan Muslim League-N Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan on Saturday said the bloated cabinet was not only contrary to the norms of a good and clean government, but it also violated the principles laid down for cabinet formation by the rulers themselves.

The biggest cabinet in the history of Pakistan is a cruel and callous "gift" of the rulers to a people groaning under the burden of inflation, unemployment and poverty, he said in a statement here.

Ch Nisar Ali Khan said the former cabinet of Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali, badly tainted by cases of sleaze, corruption and horse-trading, had been brought back in toto. To that has been added the people having forged educational degrees thus completing the picture of "good governance" envisioned by Shaukat Aziz, he said.

He said it would be foolish to expect miracles from a team that was held to ransom by the agencies.

It is a house divided into itself as is evident from the infighting over cabinet slots and the statement of Faisal Saleh Hayat and its subsequent rebuttal by the Punjab government.

"These are accusations which would have rocked any democratic government to its very foundations. Here it has not even caused a ripple thus exposing the hollowness of the system and its inherent sleaze and corruption," he said.