ISLAMABAD: The Prime Minister’s Office is busy conducting a ministerial performance audit ahead of an expected reshuffle and possible expansion of the federal cabinet.

The buzz at the PM’s Office these days, according to a senior government functionary privy to the exercise, is the implementation of a specially-prepared template to evaluate ministers’ performance.

Under the new template, individual ministerial performance is being evaluated on various counts: the status of implementation on policy decisions, number of meetings the minister has attended, foreign visits, overall attendance and confidential reports from their respective federal secretaries.

Khawaja Zaheer Ahmad, special assistant to the PM, is overseeing the audit, which is said to be in its final stages.

“The PM is personally involved in the workings of important ministries, such as power, planning & development and natural resource, among others. The performance audit will allow him to examine specific details on each and every sector,” said another official involved in the exercise.

The official explained that their job wasn’t to make recommendations for or against a certain minister, but rather to provide an insight into the overall working of the ministry over the last one year.

At the moment, the cabinet comprises 20 federal ministers, 10 state ministers and three advisers. Under the 18th Amendment, 11 per cent of the total members of parliament can become part of the cabinet. Therefore, PM Nawaz Sharif can theoretically have a 50-member cabinet, out of the 342 members of the National Assembly and 104 senators.

Talking to Dawn, a senior member of the ruling party said there were many hopefuls who wanted to get a prized cabinet slot, but those who knew the prime minister well said that when it comes to this kind of selection, “he is his own adviser and strategist and there can be surprise inclusions”.

On the possibility of cabinet portfolios being offered to parliamentarians of other parties, the party official said that with a comfortable majority of 190 MNAs in the National Assembly, most additions to the cabinet would be from the party itself, but the odd ministry could be offered to an “outsider”, particularly those who had stood with the PML-N against the onslaught of the protesting parties, led by Imran Khan and Dr Tahirul Qadri.

“Yes, the media as of late has carried many names, both from the PML-N and other parties, who could be awarded cabinet positions. But it is a guessing game because we in the party know such decisions are not shared until they actually made,” the official said.

One thing, he added, was certain Khawaja Asif — the federal minister responsible for both water and power as well as defence, and Pervez Rashid, the minister for both law and information, may be relieved of their additional responsibilities and only the PM would decide which portfolios they would retain.

“Some ministers’ jobs are in danger as the PM is not happy with their performance,” the ruling party source told Dawn, but he refused to divulge the names of such ministers.

He said there was resistance from within the party against the inclusion of former PML-Q lawmakers — who had joined the PML-N recently — in the cabinet.

Published in Dawn, October 16th, 2014