The Prime Minister House on Tuesday announced the appointment of five special assistants for Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi.

The newly appointed assistants are Barrister Zafarullah Khan, Dr Mussadiq Malik, Muftah Ismail, Asif Kirmani and Khawaja Zaheer.

After these appointments, PM Abbasi's cabinet, which was expected to be smaller than his predecessor, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's cabinet, has grown to 57 members, which is more than twice the size of Sharif's which consisted of 25 ministers.

Earlier, PM Abbasi had appointed Sartaj Aziz, Mehtab Abbasi, Amir Muqam, Irfan Siddiqui and Jam Mashooq Ali as advisers.

The new cabinet members had also served in Sharif's government in the same capacity.

Sharif's other advisers Tariq Fatimi, Shujaat Azeem, Haroon Akhtar Khan and Sharjeel Adnan Sheikh, however, have not been included in the newly elected premier's cabinet.