Harare - Zimbabwe’s finance minister, Patrick Chinamasa, is having a very tough time. He can neither rescue the economy nor stop his boss, President Robert Mugabe, from interfering in his budget.
Last week, Chinamasa went to parliament and slashed government spending on civil service salaries, and in particular, the annual Christmas bonus in his mid term budget review.
This was what he tried to do last year as well. But when Mugabe heard the reaction to the bonus cut then, he immediately publically contradicted Chinamasa, and said it must be paid.
The finance ministry then spent the next nine months looking for cash to pay the bonus.
Finding the bonus money meant late payment of civil service salaries, including soldiers’ pay for the last three months.
And poor pensioners are nearly always queuing outside the post office or banks to get their pittance.
So with regular late public pay checks, lack of cash at the banks, and ahead of the issue of a limited amount of a new currency next month, known as Bond Notes, Chinamasa, tried again. After all, insiders in the governments say, he would have said to himself, there isn’t an alternative to cuts.
He told parliament in his review last week that the annual civil service bonus would not happen for two years. He cut allowances to some senior civil servants and said he had to slash 25 000 government jobs and reduce some salaries by more then five percent.
After all, he said, the cost of keeping the government paid eats up 97 percent of its revenue and he needed to reduce this to about 60 percent in the next few years.
For a few days the main reaction was furious reaction in the media from civil servants.
But Mugabe didn’t contradict Chinamasa. He stayed quiet and prepared to depart for Lusaka and New York.
And then, earlier this week, Chris Mushowe, the junior information minister spoke out as Mugabe left for overseas, saying that Chinamasa’s proposals were indeed tabled before the Cabinet. But that they had not been approved.
He assured civil servants, farmers and the public at large that the proposed measures were not “friendly operative.
“It is hoped that this clarification puts to the rest anxieties that may have arisen within civil service, the farming community and public at large, ” according to Mushohwe.
A well-placed source in the Zimbabwe’s official financial sector, and who asked not to be named, said the contradiction of Chinamasa’s latest efforts to ameliorate the worst effects of the economic crisis, was “political.”
The ruling Zanu-PF elite is split by different factions over who will succeed Mugabe should he die, or be forced into retirement by the economic catastrophe.
Chinamasa, who is an experienced and senior lawyer, and who has successfully re-engaged with western diplomats and international funds, such as the World Bank and IMF, is seen in some quarters as a supporter, on the sidelines, of the faction in Zanu-PF which wants vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa to succeed Mugabe.
But others are backed by first lady Grace Mugabe, who is either a contender for the post or looking for a vice president’s position or will back another contender.
Her interest many say is because she knows she is not widely-liked especially among better educated urban Zimbabweans, and believes she needs to protect herself after Mugabe goes.
She clearly does not see that protection from the Mnangagwa faction.
So, with Mugabe away at the UN General Assembly in New York, no one is sure whether Minister Mushowe’s remarks were the real thing, and will be confirmed by Mugabe when he returns home.
Or whether Chinamasa has had his way and has taken a small, but significiant step towards reducing the massive government pay roll by about US$150 million by the end of next year.
One way or another, many commentators say, Chinamasa has been humiliated.
And he is taking strain as he is still looking for a US$1,8 bn loan to pay off the World Bank in particular and the African Development Bank and the IMF so he can borrow for Zimbabwe once more and refurbish infrastructure to try to reduce imports and better balance Zimbabwe’s books.
Independent Foreign Service