Johannesburg - Leading Zimbabwean opposition figure Tendai Biti will become the country's finance minister before the week is out, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai announced Tuesday.

Biti, a lawyer by training and a vocal critic of President Robert Mugabe, will be sworn in as minister on Friday, along with some 30 other ministers from the MDC and Mugabe's Zanu-PF that will form a unity government.

Tsvangirai, who will be sworn in as prime minister in a separate ceremony on Wednesday, also announced the party's other choices to fill the 13 ministries awarded to the MDC in a September power- sharing deal. Few of them are known outside Zimbabwe.

Mugabe's Zanu-PF will occupy 15 ministries. A breakaway MDC faction led by Arthur Mutambara will have three. Apart from finance and health, Zanu-PF retained most of the important portfolios.

MDC Secretary-General Biti was part of the more hardline faction within the MDC that opposed joining a government that is heavily skewed in Zanu-PF's favour.

As finance minister he will have to work with Reserve Bank governor and Mugabe ally, Gideon Gono, nicknamed the "trillion-dollar man" for overseeing world-record inflation. (dpa)