PETALING JAYA: The appointed Cabinet ministers are entitled to determine whether they need deputy ministers or not, Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said today.
“We do not know how many deputy ministers will be required. We will give the ministers the right to determine whether they need deputy ministers or not,” he said at a press conference after having chaired a meeting of the Pakatan Harapan Presidential Council here.
Reporters had asked Dr Mahathir when he would announce the rest of the Cabinet ministers and the deputy ministers for the ministers already appointed.
Thirteen ministers have been appointed so far and all of them were sworn in before the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Sultan Muhammad V, at Istana Negara on May 21.
The ministries are Women, Family and Community Development; Home Affairs; Finance; Defence; Education; Rural Development; Economic Affairs; Housing and Local Government; Transport; Communications and Multimedia; Human Resource; Agriculture and Agro-based Industry; and Health.
Dr Mahathir, 92, was sworn in as the seventh prime minister of Malaysia on May 10 after the Pakatan Harapan coalition won the 14th general election a day earlier, ending the 61-year rule of the Barisan Nasional. –BERNAMA