Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has completed the second phase of his cabinet’s expansion by inducting nine ministers and 11 special assistants, raising the strength of the cabinet to 37.

Although the cabinet has a number of new faces, it has a sizable number of unelected men to run the show in Sindh.

Among them, perhaps Babar Effendi, a former irrigation secretary of the Sindh government, is different from others in that he can be described as a technocrat.

He has a rich experience in the field of irrigation and until recently, headed the Sindh Irrigation and Drainage Authority (Sida), a body which promotes participatory irrigation system.

The rest are mostly kith and kin of PPP leaders. For example, Umer Rehman is the son of Rehman Malik, Qasim Naveed is the son of Naveed Qamar, the newly appointed parliamentary leader of the PPP in the National Assembly, and Burhan Chandio heads the Chandio tribe.

A constitutional expert justified the induction of so many special assistants, attributing it to what he called an anomaly in the 18th Amendment which put a limit on the number of cabinet portfolios. “Under Article 130, an MPA can become minister and exercise executive authority,” he said.

“Portfolios like home, food and finance have not been entrusted to anyone. This suggests that the chief minister intends to keep these portfolios.

“The induction of Umer Rehman is a shock as he is not only unelected but also because he hails from another province,” contends Prof Inamullah Shaikh, who writes regularly on Sindh’s political scene.

Shaikh likened the cabinet to old wine in a new bottle. “Manzoor Wassan is a big dreamer indeed, but what has he done so far to merit another stint in the provincial cabinet? Where is the change everyone is talking about?” he wondered.

Shaikh, continuing in the same vein, was brutally frank about Hazar Khan Bijarani too. “Why does Bijarani continue to be a part of the cabinet since Mumtaz Bhutto’s chief ministership?”

Political compulsion

An MPA, who requested anonymity, defended the induction of a fresh batch of ministers and advisers. He contended that it was a “political compulsion” since general elections were not far off now.

Interestingly, almost every district has got representation in the new Sindh cabinet. Some have been gifted with two or more portfolios, for example Jamshoro, Sanghar and Umerkot. But unfortunately Tharparkar, the most underdeveloped region of the province, has no representation at all. Ironically, neighbouring Umerkot has three ministers.

The exclusion of Thar gives the lie to the chief minister’s commitment to a “greener Thar”.

Thar has been in the news since early 2014 for back-to-back droughts and unending deaths of newborns caused by malnutrition. The government’s detractors ascribe the tragedy to mishandling and apathy of the administration.

A view that the government is making ‘political adjustments’ in the run-up to 2018 elections is not entirely misplaced if allocations of portfolios are anything to go by. For instance, narcotics, which has always been a part of the excise ministry, has been bifurcated and entrusted to Burhan Chandio, an unelected individual and chief of the Chandio tribe.

The CM’s inspection team is to be headed by Nadir Khawaja, who has recently become a part of the PPP’s mainstream after spending some time in the company of Dr Zulfikar Mirza.

The inspection team is usually headed by a BS-19 officer.

“Portfolios have been doled out with an eye on the next elections,” opines a retired civil servant, Gul Mohammad Umrani. “It is a huge juggernaut of all tribes and castes evocative of a Mughal court dictating from Delhi or Nadir Shah from Kandahar,” he quipped. He was perhaps alluding to the induction of Mahars’ tribal chief and MPA from Ghotki, Mohammad Bux Mahar, and Burhan Chandio, a relative of Nawab Shabbir Chandio from Qambar-Shahdadkot.

A noteworthy omission in the cabinet has been that of Nadir Ali Khan Magsi. He has hitherto held the food portfolio and was believed to be eying the local government ministry.

Published in Dawn, August 9th, 2016