Garbage shuffle as Mugabe rewards praise singers

s since the previous reshuffle. Poor old Herbert Murerwa was off-loaded like a bag of low-grade fertiliser. His crime is that he had dared to have a mind of his own in relation to matters financial.
In Mugabe’s book a good minister of finance listens carefully to, and does whatever the Governor of the Reserve Bank says should be done. Rumour has it that Murerwa had previously offered to resign but the dictator would have none of that. In his meanest, the dictator must have told him, “Don’t resign, I want to fire you”. Murerwa must be relieved to get out of the circus with his “gentleman Jim” reputation unscathed.
Murerwa was replaced by probably the weakest cabinet minister ever appointed by Mugabe since his ascension to executive office. Mumbengegwi has no known skills in public finance. It is doubtful that he has the capacity to even balance his own meagre resources.
But he suits the position he was appointed to since Mugabe’s idea must be to have a minister of finance who knows so little that Governor Gono will have a freer hand to do as he wishes with both the monetary and fiscal aspects of that portfolio. It is obvious that, given his ignorance of public finance, Mumbengegwi will give Gono no trouble at all.
Joseph Made, former Minister of Agriculture, must be wondering what has hit him. A whole new ministry had to be created just in order to find him something to do, or rather, so he keeps his mouth shut regarding the total collapse of the agriculture sector since the madness of the fast track land reform. Well, at least he gets to keep the Merc.
There has never been a minister for tractors and combine harvesters in this country in the past. Made is therefore making history by being so assigned. He should consider himself a survivor; worse things could have happened to his reputation. Now the agriculture sector has three ministries fussing over it. The result will be more chaos and confusion than order and productivity. At least Joe Made no longer has to count green mealies from the sky and mislead the nation on bumper harvests.
In his foolishness, Mugabe decided to keep the hated and despised Ignatius Chombo in the Local Government ministry in spite of all his diabolical interference with the smooth workings of local authorities. Blood is, indeed thicker than water. We all know why Chombo cannot commit any sin in Mugabe’s eyes.
It befuddles the mind, however, why people like Eaneas Chigwedere and ailing Mudenge were retained when their performance is well known to be lacklustre and destructive to our children’s education. To add salt to the wound, Mugabe appointed an imbecile, one Maluleke as Deputy Minister to Chigwedere.
Those of us who know Maluleke are aware that the man is entirely devoid of grey matter; to make him Deputy Minister of Education and Culture is to seal the fate of our school-going children.
But none of all this shuffling and reshuffling of the national zombies will save Mugabe and his perishing regime from total collapse. The only way in which Mugabe can rescue the national economy and bring about a turn around is when he reshuffles himself out of office. There is no alternative to regime change.