The First Meeting of the New Cabinet Convenes
Office of the Spokesman to the President
05/08/2006
Arg, Kabul - H.E. Hamid Karzai, President
of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, chaired the first meeting
of the new cabinet which was held this morning at the Gulkhana
Palace.
The President thanked the Members of Parliament
for approving the proposed cabinet ministers regardless of ethnic
and factional considerations.
During the meeting the President said “Your
performances will be closely scrutinized by the people of Afghanistan,
Members of Parliament and the International Community, so I
urge you to do your utmost to improve the living conditions
of the people of Afghanistan.”
“You will only succeed in your job when
you perform your responsibilities with diligence and efficiency
and improve the living conditions of the people of Afghanistan.”
The President urged the cabinet ministers to protect
public property and to avoid squandering it.
In order to ensure optimum transparency, the President
instructed the cabinet ministers to register all their movable
and unmovable property with the Government and formally announce
it through the media. This will form the basis of people’s
judgment about members of the cabinet in the future.
The President instructed the cabinet ministers
to consider the principles of meritocracy and employ qualified
people based on the merits of full and open competition.
The President urged the cabinet ministers to fully
concentrate on the full implementation of the Afghanistan Interim
National Development Strategy within the defined timeframe.
The President urged the cabinet ministers to pursue
the policy of achieving a balanced development throughout the
country and to ensure that all provinces of Afghanistan benefit
the Government’s development projects.
The President also said “The enemies of
Afghanistan have recently been trying to deprive the youth of
Afghanistan of their right to education by burning schools and
we must do our utmost to protect the schools.
The President also instructed that religious schools
must be built in all provinces of Afghanistan thus enabling
the youth of Afghanistan to learn religious subjects in their
respective provinces.
The President emphasized the enlightening role
of media in promoting public awareness, reflecting the realities
of Afghanistan and sustaining democracy.
All cabinet ministers were assigned to prepare
an itemized list of priorities for their Ministry and present
it to the next cabinet meeting.
