Former Negeri Sembilan menteri besar Mohamed Isa Abdul Samad is among the new faces introduced by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to the cabinet today.

The 55-year-old Jempol member of parliament will be helming the newly created ministry in charge of the Federal Territories, overlooking the administration of Kuala Lumpur, administrative centre Putrajaya and Labuan.

This portfolio is being reintroduced after it was scrapped in the 1990s.

The Prime Minister himself retained his portfolios as finance minister and also took up the post of minister of home affairs.

His deputy, Najib Abdul Razak, also retained his defence portfolio.

Abdullah also retained MIC president S Samy Vellu as the works minister and allocated an additional deputy minister a parliamentary secretary's post for the party.

Previously, MIC had one minister's post, two deputy ministers and two parliamentary secretaries.

The shake up

Under the new line-up, former Deputy Rural Development minister G Palanivel moved to women, family and community development ministry while the former Health Ministry parliamentary secretary S Sothinathan has been promoted as the deputy minister of natural resources and environment.

S Veerasingam too sees a promotion from being a parliamentary secretary at the national unity and social development ministry to a deputy minister at domestic trade and consumer affairs ministry.

He will be replacing MIC deputy president S Subramaniam who was dropped from the MIC list for the elections.

The party's youth chief SA Vigneswaran is one of the new faces introduced by Abdullah and he will be the parliamentary secretary for youth and sports ministry while the newly-elected Segamat MP Dr S Subramaniam will be the parliamentary secretary of the housing and local government ministry.

Wanita MIC secretary Komala Krishnamoorthy has been made the parliamentary secretary to the education ministry.

Meanwhile, there will be new faces at the Prime Minister's Department with the introduction of Radzi Sheikh Ahmad, Dr Maximus Ongkili, Mustapa Mohamed, Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz and Dr Abdullah Mat Zin. Only Bernard Dompok is retained here while Tengku Adnan Mansor is dropped.

Veteran Trade Minister Rafidah Aziz retained her post, as did Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar and Second Finance Minister Nor Mohamed Yakcop, who was appointed in a minor reshuffle earlier this year.

The ministers are expected to be sworn in Tuesday, a day before the weekly cabinet meeting.