Chinamasa gets another Mugabe slap down raising fears he might get the chop

In 1997, Herbert Murerwa, then Finance Minister, against his warnings, was forced to dole out $50 000 each to over 50 000 war veterans in unplanned gratuities. The Zimbabwe dollar plunged 72 percent and the stock market crashed 46 percent.

Murerwa had warned the payouts would bankrupt the country, to which Mugabe responded: “Who ever heard of a country going bankrupt?”

Soon, Murerwa was out of work. In 2000, Simba Makoni was appointed Finance Minister. It did not take him long to fall foul of the “see no evil” culture.

The economy was in crisis, he admitted in a 2001 interview. “I would have to be foolish to deny what is evident to everybody in broad daylight, even in the darkness of night.”

That was strike one. Strike two came when he tried to introduce a broad range of reforms, which included having to devalue the Zimbabwe dollar, which at the time was artificially overvalued. His boss was livid.

“Devaluation is sinister and can only be advocated for by our saboteurs and enemies of this government,” Mugabe said in 2002.

That September, Makoni left his post, and was to later quit ZANU-PF and challenge Mugabe in the 2008 presidential election.

After Makoni, Murerwa was reappointed to the post. Again, it did not take too much time before the President was unhappy with him.

Murerwa clashed with Gideon Gono over the central bank chief’s printing of money to fund all sorts of “quasi fiscal activities”; from ploughs, scotch carts to vehicles.

Murerwa wanted government to go lean instead, saying in a 2005 speech that “we must all make sacrifices, with Ministries living within our economy’s means. There will simply be no magic solutions to our challenges.”

Mugabe did not like that either. Murerwa was too “bookish”, he said.

“They have this word they like using; quasi, quasi. But I tell them that this is the expenditure that we need. We are under sanctions, and there is no room for the type of bookish economics we have at the Ministry of Finance,” Mugabe said.

So, Mugabe needed a replacement for Murerwa.

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