Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has reshuffled his Cabinet, firing his finance minister and sidelining the agriculture minister who has presided over six years of shrinking harvests in the wake of the seizure of land from white farmers, the Herald newspaper reported Wednesday.| Mugabe replaced Finance Minister Herbert Murerwa with Samuel Mumbengegwi, who had been a junior minister in charge of increasing black Zimbabweans role in the economy, the government-run paper reported. |
The Herald said Mumbengegwi would be expected to work with the central bank chief to "consolidate" Zimbabwe's economic turnaround. Zimbabwe has the world's highest annual rate of inflation -- 1,281.1 percent -- and critical shortages of foreign currency, fuel and some basic commodities. The Zimbabwean president blames the crisis on Western sanctions. But critics point to Mugabe's policies, including the land seizures launched in 2000. The farm seizures, touted as a way of reversing colonial-era imbalances in land ownership, have been accompanied by a clampdown on the opposition, the free press and rights groups.