Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe was due to swear in his newly reshuffled cabinet - including a new finance minister and an anti-corruption minister - yesterday as the government attempts to pull the economy out of a nosedive.

Earlier, the state-controlled Daily Herald reported that Chris Kuruneri, the former deputy finance minister, was replacing finance minister Herbert Murerwa, who has been in the job for 18 months.

It said Mugabe had also appointed veteran ruling party politburo member Didymus Mutasa as "minister of special affairs in the president's office in charge of anti-corruption and anti-monopolies programme".

The last two months have seen a string of arrests of business executives, many of them senior ruling party officials, as well as administrators and lawyers alleged to be involved in fraud and smuggling gold and illegal foreign currency.

The government said it has launched a "turn-around programme" to reverse the four-year crisis that has produced the world's fastest shrinking rate of gross domestic product - 40% in four years - and inflation now running at 598%, also a current world record.

In yesterday's new cabinet line-up, mines minister Edward Chininga-Chindori was the only one to lose his job.

Mugabe shifted eight other ministers around, and also appointed "provincial governors" over Harare, the capital, and Bulawayo, the second city.

Both cities are controlled by councils and represented by MPs of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, and observers say the new positions are part of government strategy to seize back control of the two largest urban areas in the country.

Mugabe also appointed as deputy ministers former air force commander Josiah Tungamirai, former state security director Shadreck Chipanga and former army brigadier Ambrose Mutinhiri, in what observers say is a sign of increasing "militarisation" of his administration.

Chipango - now deputy minister of home affairs - was removed from his parliamentary seat by the high court in October last year on the grounds of violent intimidation there during the 2000 election.

However, he retains it because he has filed an appeal.

Mugabe also announced two new ministries - one of "policy implementation" and another for "indigenisation and empowerment".

Men regarded as militants - in what Mugabe described his last cabinet in August 2002 as his "war council" - were retained: information minister Jonathan Moyo, secret police minister Nicholas Goche, lands minister Joseph Made who led Mugabe's disastrous "land reform programme" and justice minister Patrick Chinamasa, accused of presiding over the "packing" of the judiciary with ruling party supporters.

The post of finance minister is the most frequently changed position in Mugabe's cabinet. Murerwa has been accused of being ineffective, while his predecessor, popular business executive Simba Makoni was sacked in July 2000 after Mugabe denounced his plans for currency devaluation as "sabotage".

Mugabe has not filled the position of the late vice-president Simon Muzenda who died in September last year, aged 82.

The position is regarded as the key to succession to Mugabe, who turns 80 on February 21.

Sources in the ruling Zanu-PF party say faction-feuding and charges of conspiracy have been raging among the party hierarchy, with the post of party vice-president as the prize.

Mugabe, however, has declared he will not consider resigning until 2008 when his current period of office runs out, and discussion of the issue at party meetings has been banned.

Zimbabwe's constitution provides for two vice-presidents.

Surviving vice-president Joseph Msika (80) is not regarded as a serious contender. – Sapa.