No deputies for ministers

In a departure from the way she formed her previous cabinets, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina this time chose not to appoint any state minister to a ministry where there is a minister and any minister to a ministry where there is a state minister.

The only exception is Nasrul Hamid, who was the state minister for power, energy and mineral resources in the previous cabinet. In the new cabinet, he is the state minister for power, with Hasina assuming the responsibility of the entire ministry.

Save for Hamid, the other 10 state ministers have the full responsibility of their respective ministries, The Daily Star has learnt from people with knowledge on the matter.

There are 39 ministries in total.

Feuds between ministers and state ministers in the last cabinet might have prompted Hasina to form her fifth cabinet in such a manner, they said.

For instance, in her previous term, the ministry of health and family welfare had Zahid Maleque as the minister and Murad Hasan as the state minister.

Owing to a rift between the two, Hasan was moved to the ministry of information and broadcasting, where he served as the state minister for information.

Apart from this, the ministry of local government, rural development and cooperatives and the ministry of posts, telecommunications and information technology had to issue separate notifications to distribute the responsibilities of the state ministers and the ministers.

Another deviation in Hasina’s fifth cabinet is the exclusion of several ministers and state ministers who performed well in the last term.

Take the cases of Saifuzzaman Chowdhury, who had served as the land minister, and Abdur Razzaque, who was the agriculture minister.

“Saifuzzaman has made a stagnant ministry like land, dynamic. His integrity in ministry-related work is almost unquestionable,” said a former secretary to the land ministry on condition of anonymity.

He served in Hasina’s last two cabinets, so maybe she felt like giving others a shot, the ex-civil servant said.

“Awami League is a large party. The prime minister has to look at everything,” said the former bureaucrat, adding that Hasina might give him a more important post later on.

A top agronomist who works closely with the agriculture ministry said the country’s agriculture sector is at a new juncture now and Razzaque had a role in it.

The mechanisation of agriculture, coming up with new seed varieties and bringing the farmers on board with these developments require a competent coordinator of multidisciplinary work.

“In this case, Razzaque worked efficiently. I was a bit surprised by his exclusion from the new cabinet,” he added.

Another surprise shuffle was Dipu Moni’s shift from the ministry of education to the ministry of social welfare. Her previous post as the education minister was taken up by her former deputy, Mohibul Hasan Chowdhury.

Other than Mohibul’s elevation to the post of education minister, none of the state ministers in the previous cabinet were promoted to ministers, in what was viewed as another departure from the past.

Many in the party and the government believe that those who were left out might be brought on board later as this is the smallest cabinet in Hasina’s five terms in power.

However, a former cabinet secretary who has worked with Hasina for a long time ruled out the possibility.

“She is very conservative when it comes to reshuffling the cabinet. She used to receive complaints about many ministers and state ministers. She would get annoyed but she did not drop them [from the cabinet],” he added.

The first meeting of the new cabinet is scheduled for tomorrow at the Prime Minister’s Office.