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January 10, 2021
ISLAMABAD: The involvement of the army of 20 advisers and special assistants to the prime minister in cabinet committees -- which they had presided over for a long time -- has now been reduced to attending those meetings only ‘by special invitation’.
Implementing an IHC judgment, the prime minister has reconstituted the cabinet committees by minimizing the role of the advisers and special assistants. As ruled by the Islamabad High Court (IHC), these figures can now neither head nor be members of any cabinet committee, and have no role, responsibility or duty to perform in the ministries and divisions to which they have been appointed. In any official record, no adviser or special assistant can be shown to be heading or presiding over a cabinet committee or a ministry or division. According to the IHC ruling, they can no longer have any say in making decisions and policies. Under an official notification, the Cabinet Committee on Institutional Reforms (CCIR) is now headed by the federal minister for education and professional training and has the ministers for defence, national food security and research and industries and production as its members.