Cabinet reshuffle likely
PETALING JAYA: The first reshuffle of the Pakatan Harapan Cabinet is due anytime and a few ministers will be changing their portfolios.
Sources said Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad announced this during the Cabinet meeting yesterday.
“The announcement of a reshuffle was minuted in the Cabinet meeting and the Cabinet was informed that there will be changes,” a source told The Star.
“He (Dr Mahathir) also stated that he would be meeting the party chiefs in the evening.”
The source added that this was the first time the Prime Minister had openly said in a Cabinet meeting that he would be shuffling portfolios of existing ministers and that the reshuffle was imminent.
Another source, however, said Dr Mahathir had merely said that he would be “reorganising portfolios”.
The source believed that there would not be any changes in the line-up of ministers.
“Same ministers and ministries, but the portfolios of the ministries will be reorganised. I think that’s what the PM meant,” said the second source who was present at the Cabinet meeting.
Yesterday evening, Dr Mahathir also met up with the top leaders of three Pakatan Harapan parties and Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail.
“He wanted to meet the four people who headed the parties when Pakatan formed the Federal Government in 2018.
“This was why Dr Wan Azizah, who was then the PKR president, joined the meeting. It was merely a meeting for the Prime Minister to urge us to be more efficient amid the many things that the government is handling,” said another source.
There has long been talk of a Cabinet reshuffle, with some ministers getting flak for not performing up to the expectations of the public.
Dr Mahathir, however, has repeatedly said there would be no such thing.
On May 5, at a function to commemorate the first anniversary of Pakatan’s GE14 victory, Dr Mahathir gave his Cabinet a score of “five out of 10” but insisted that the ministers are “learning fast”.
The last time Dr Mahathir had denied that there would be a Cabinet reshuffle was on July 19 following a viral photograph of the full Cabinet taken before a meeting in Putrajaya.
Source: TheStar
