PM to trim cabinet ministers after presenting report to Parliament – MP

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is expected to begin his process to trim down the number of his cabinet ministers, after presenting his final report to the Parliament, the Legislature of his National Alliance, Batoul Farouq, said on Saturday.   “The National Alliance shall try to change its cabinet ministers charged with negligence. Some ministries will be merged with other ministries, in order to trim the number of cabinet ministries, which are presentely more than enough,” Farouq told IraqiNews.com news agency.  “There has been clear a response from the political blocs in this respect,” Farouq added.   Prime Minister al-Maliki said in a speech last Thursday regarding his evaluation of his cabinet, following the end of his 100-day period he assigned for such an evaluation, that trimming down the number of cabinet ministers had become an urgent necessity.   Maliki said that the potentials of different ministries had been different, regarding the implementation of their missions after the end of the 100-day period, between good and medium. He pointed out that an unspecified number of them had suffered from  weakness in their cadres, which is causing him to take some measures against them.   Among the measures Maliki spoke about were “trimming the number of ministries, the abolition of some non-important ministries that were established on basis of ‘honor’, and the change of the cadres, on the level of ministers or director-generals, along with the continuation of the observation program.”   SKH (TI)   483