Imran Khan's 16-member Cabinet sworn in; first meeting held

Islamabad: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday chaired the first meeting of his Cabinet during which strategies to shape the new Pakistan government's policies were discussed, hours after the President administered oath to his 21-member team.

Khan, who was sworn-in as Pakistan's 22nd Prime Minister on Saturday has vowed to initiate massive economic and tax reforms, launch an austerity drive to cut deficit, curb corruption and bring back laundered money.

The 65-year-old cricketer-turned-politician chaired the first meeting of his Cabinet at the Prime Minister's Office.

The Cabinet discussed strategies to shape the new government's policies, state-run Radio Pakistan reported.

Following the Cabinet meeting, Khan met with Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Zubair Mahmood Hayat at the PMO, the report said.

Earlier, 16 ministers from Prime Minister Khan's 21-strong Cabinet were sworn-in by President Mamnoon Hussain, who administered the oath to them.

The new Cabinet has 16 federal ministers and five advisers to the prime minister, most of them previously held key posts in the regime of former dictator General (retd) Pervez Musharraf.

The ministers who took the oath include Shah Mehmood Qureshi as the Foreign Minister, Defence Minister Pervez Khattak, Finance Minister Asad Umer, Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry, Education Minister Shafqat Mehmood, Health Minister Amir Kiani, Religious Minister Nooru Haq Qadri and Railway Minister Sheikh Rashid.

Other ministers are Khusro Bakhtiar as Minister for Water Resources, Farogh Naseem Minister for Law, Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication, Chaudhry Tariq Bashir Cheema Minister for States and Frontier Regions and Ghulam Sarwar Khan Minister for Petroleum.