ISLAMABAD, Aug 31: About 30 ministers and advisers, including a few new faces, will take oath of office here today. President Gen Pervez Musharraf will administer the oath to the new cabinet at a ceremony to be held at the presidency.

A first list of ministers was finalized during a meeting between Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and President Musharraf on Monday, sources said. In the second phase, sources added, around 20 ministers of state, most of them new faces and some women, would be inducted a couple of days later, on Friday or Saturday.

When asked if he was taking oath on Wednesday, former information minister Sheikh Rashid said that the 'authorities' had asked him to be in the city on Wednesday "but they didn't tell me why".

Secretary Information Syed Anwar Mehmood confirmed that the swearing-in of the new cabinet would take place on Wednesday afternoon. The new cabinet will include almost all the ministers of the Jamali and Shujaat cabinets.

However, there is a possibility that a couple of ministers of state may be dropped and the post of interior minister held in the last two cabinets by Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayat may be given to former ISI chief Lt-Gen (retd) Javed Ashraf Qazi.

According to sources there is a likelihood of Mr Hayat getting the ministry of textiles, a bifurcated division of the Ministry of Commerce. There is a likelihood that quite a few ministries would be bifurcated to accommodate new aspirants, sources added.

For the same reason, they said, the number of ministers of state is also likely to be increased. Included among the new contenders are Zahid Hamid and Jehangir Tareen, a cousin of Humayun Akhtar.

The name of Chaudhry Wajahat Hussain, a brother of Chaudhry Shujaat, has also been mentioned, although the former prime minister is said to have ruled out any possibility of his brother joining the cabinet.

Dr Sher Afgan Khan Niazi, who met Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz along with five legislators of the Pakistan Peoples's Party (formerly Patriots), on Sunday in what appeared to be a defiance of the party leadership, told Dawn that the party's leaders had agreed in principle that only members with clean record would be in the cabinet.

According to Mr Sher Afgan, who is said to have been promised the post of minister of state for parliamentary affairs, an agreement has been reached under which four full ministers and two ministers of state would be taken from the PPP, meaning that the party's four ministers in the last cabinet will retain their posts although not necessary their portfolios.

Among those who are expected to retain their previous portfolios are Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, Ijazul Haq, Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri, Humayun Akhtar Khan, Rao Sikandar Iqbal, Aftab Ahmed Sherpao, Naseer Khan and MQM ministers Syed Safwanullah and Babar Khan Ghauri.

Similarly, Sharifuddin Pirzada, Neelofar Bakhtiar and Dr Ataur Rahman will be re-inducted as advisers to the prime minister. Dr Sher Afgan, who campaigned against his party colleagues, Faisal Saleh Hayat and Chaudhry Noraiz Shakoor, is confident that there will be a change of names of people representing the party in the cabinet because, he says, it has been accepted that no-one with tarnished reputation will be in the new cabinet.

When asked how will this be determined, he said there were agencies which had the record of everybody, and the president himself was fully aware of their performance.