Tendai Biti, the former finance minister in Zimbabwe's now-defunct government of national unity, has slammed plans to cut the size of the cash-strapped country's civil service and to trim salaries, saying they are unworkable. On Friday Zimbabwe's main public service union rejected a government proposal to cut 25,000 jobs and suspend annual bonuses.Presenting his mid-term fiscal policy review on Thursday, Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa said the cull would result in saving $180-million annually.This, he said, was essential to ensure that the cash-strapped government could continue to pay its employees.But Biti, now the leader of the opposition People's Democratic Party, said the move showed little understanding of "political economics"."As a finance minister Chinamasa should understand that civil servants are paid very little and the money they are paid as bonuses quickly comes back into the government coffers through taxes because they will spend it on Christmas gifts and school uniforms for their children," he said.When Biti was finance minister he pushed the unity government to get rid of "ghost workers'', who were said to number about 70000. He still believed this to be the best route to reduce government spending.On Friday the Apex Council, a grouping of all state-sector unions, demanded talks with the government over Chinamasa's proposals."We believe these measures are ill-conceived and can only further entrench the doom and gloom that has become the lot of the average civil servant," said Cecelia Alexander, head of the council.Chinamasa said state-sector wages took up 97% of revenue collected between January and June . ..