Dr Gono admits he was a Mugabe puppet Reserve Bank Governor

Controversial puppet reserve Bank Governor Dr Gideon Gono hanging to a position he is nationally unwanted in the name of President Mugabe

Elsewhere on this portal we have reproduced a Herald report by the publication’s Business Editor Victoria Ruzvidzo titled “All my actions above board: Gono.”

In that revealing article, Dr Gono projects himself as an innocent victim of an imprisoning socio-economic, legislative and political environment where he had set parameters of behaviour and action that did not require him to think.

Something like what a puppet is expected to do when the master pulls the strings. What a shame!

We have in the past agitated that Dr Gono must be fired and each time he attempts to defend himself we are left more convinced than ever before that he is a square peg that must be uprooted from the round hole he is affixed at the Reserve Bank.

Dr Gono is reported to have told Parliamentarians of his surprise at reported accusations by the Minister of Finance that he was running parallel government structures.

"I have been amused to read in the media that the central bank has been working as a parallel Government between 1 December 2003 and 31 March 2009. If indeed we were running a parallel Government, how come 75 percent of our advice was not implemented?

If it had been implemented, we would not be in the situation that we are in now.

Also, if 25 percent of what we did, had not been done, we would not be where we are today . . . it would have been worse," he reportedly told Parliament.

We are not sure when next he is scheduled to address parliament as Reserve Bank Governor but in the unlikely event he is given the chance to do so we hope Parliamentarians would be ready to ask this charlatan Governor for specifics of what it is that made 75% of his rejected recommendations and by whom the recommendations were rejected and for what reasons?

While at it they should ask him how he managed to stick around with a government that did not like 75% of his ideas and how effective he felt he was if only 25% of what he believed should be done professionally was being diluted by 75% of input from unqualified people outside the speciality area he had been hired as consultant of last resort.
He then reportedly took parliamentarians through some sections of the RBZ Act that included Section 6 (g), on the functions of the central bank to act as a banker and financial adviser to, and a fiscal agent of the State; and 6 (l), that empowers the Reserve Bank to exercise any functions conferred or imposed upon it in terms of the enactment.

In that regard he disclosed that he was also guided by Section 8 (2) which states that "nothing in this section shall prevent the State from carrying on transactions in such manner as the State may require and, if so requested by the State, the Bank shall make the necessary arrangements to this end".

After that he went on to accuse Parliamentarians of unforgivable amnesia as follows;
"People forget what they legislated. You said to me ita zvese zvese (do anything and everything) as long as takuti ita (we have told you to do so). So that is what I have been doing. You don’t shoot the messenger."

By that he was implying that he was working under instructions from his Principal the President who was issuing the instructions in terms of the relevant laws and the Constitution of Zimbabwe.

It was lost to him that the reason why he was employed as a professional was to advise the Principal on best practice banking for the country that would keep it in a sound financial position that allowed for economic stability and growth.

The obvious objective was to exonerate the fiscus from its well documented indulgence in quasi-fiscal operations, money-printing and other interventions that fuelled inflation and worsened the economic situation.

He reportedly bragged that “every parastatal, local authority, ministry, the media, the judiciary, law enforcement agencies, civil society and all sectors of the economy had benefited from the quasi-fiscal operations.”

We hope the Governor knows what a benefit is. He was surely not telling parliamentarians that the current failed state of affairs obtaining in all the sectors he singled out is a benefit. If he was and the parliamentarians accepted that as fact then we are faced with an even greater problem than that Dr Gono represents at the reserve Bank.

Dr Gono surely understands that a real benefit is an improvement that accrues to anyone who undertakes a productive activity. What improvement accrued to Zimbabwe from the printed money if we may ask?

Is Dr Gono seriously implying that the failed economy, the worthless currency, the empty retail outlets, the closed banks, the dilapidated health and education infrastructure, the failed power and energy delivery system, the potholed road networks, the dysfunctional telecommunications system, the disease infected water supplies, the empty grain silos are a benefit his indulgence in quasi-fiscal activities brought about are benefits all Zimbabweans should be proud of?

"All that we did, however, was authorised, transparently reported upon at different platforms and appreciated by all beneficiaries, including by those who today hold different views in public.

These were done within the confines of the central bank having been appointed by Government as the "point institution" to lead the fight against socio-economic challenges the country faced.

This meant that the scope and platform of the central bank operations would become less defined, less confined and "less understood by the generality of the stakeholders".

It operated under a strategic umbrella of "necessary ambiguity with constructive intent," he reportedly bragged.

He does not get it does he? Whetehr he was working under orders or out of personal intuition what he did was wrong and bad for Zimbabwe and will remain that forever.

This kind of behaviour is akin to a driver who is ordered to drive a vehicle with known defective brakes and gets involved in a fatal accident that kills most of his passengers and then turns around to pass the blame on whoever ordered him to drive the defective vehicle. That would be considered inane and nonsensical excuse if it turns out he was aware of the defective brakes before setting our on the fatal drive would it not?

Nothing can be further from the truth though. There was wide outcry about the little that was ever reported about the quasi-fiscal approaches of the Reserve bank that Dr Gono dutifully ignored because it was not appreciated by himself or his principal and or both.

How does Dr Gono explain the inconsistency that all he did was authorised and transparently reported and the use of Military interventions and setting up of pricing regulatory bureaucracies to coerce compliance if the initiatives he undertook were transparent and welcome to the beneficiaries.

Even more importantly why did the Reserve Bank embark on a policy about turn and clear the quasi-fiscal debt it had incurred over the years from its records and transfer it to the Exchequer leaving the new Minister to inherit a bankrupt fiscus.

What has prompted the Bank to institute an audit of the quasi fiscal activities ten years down the line when evidently records have been misplaced, tempered with or merely lost in the paper dragon the initiative created?

How accurate can an Auditor be in carrying out forensic audit over a period of ten years where internal audit systems were suspended and control systems were changed to operate on dynamics of "necessary ambiguity with constructive intent," which culminated in destruction?

“Zimbabwe was going through an economic war and ‘when you are at war, you cannot ask for transparency in some instances," Dr Gono justified his actions.

Which country is not grappling with economic challenges the world over if we may ask? Not a single one. All countries are engaged in lethal economic wars and to avoid being exposed to individually ill considered impunity by economic managers stricter fiscal discipline is enforced on economic mangers rather than extension of liberties for them to practice unchecked voodoo economic experiments as Dr Gono alleges Parliament did to his Principal and by extension himself.

"The records will show that nothing of the sort ever happened or could happen, not least because the real fact that is obviously conveniently ignored in the various debates on the role of the Reserve Bank in the formulation and implementation of monetary policy under my watch is that for the first time in the history of our country, the bank was singled out and selected by the State and Government of the day to be the ‘point institution’ to address and ameliorate the extraordinary circumstances which engulfed the country," Dr Gono dismissed allegations of the Reserve Bank and him personal involving himself in setting up parallel government structures.

But that is the most inane dismissal anyone could have proffered in the circumstances. How did the Reserve bank emerge as the ‘point institution’ to “ameliorate the extraordinary circumstances which engulfed the country?”
What had happened to the country’s Cabinet that had rendered it incompetent to ameliorate the extraordinary circumstances that only spared the Reserve Bank Governor and his institution?

In any event assuming that was the case what were the Cabinet ministers being paid for if their work had been transferred to the reserve bank Governor?

If indeed that was fact what is there for the Reserve Bank Governor to deny that he indeed was running parallel government infrastructure which only met with the approval of President Mugabe and left the Cabinet docile to the extent of it being labelled by Mugabe “the most incompetent he had ever worked with.”

Dr Gono has in the past disclosed that he had worked as a Governor for nearly two years without drawing his salary from the institution and would not stay as the institution’s principal officer a minute longer than his principal desired him to be at the helm.

Towards the expiry of his first term as the Reserve Bank Governor he also disclosed that he did not understand the fuss about his employment contract extension at the Reserve Bank as he was actively seeking means and ways to terminate same at the earliest opportunity.

Dr Gono believes his principal is President Robert Mugabe and not the people of Zimbabwe calling for his ouster at the Reserve Bank for maladies he did not commit.

He is absolutely wrong about that and when the time comes he will regret that.

We will never relent in calling for his ouster as long as he admits he was and still is Mugabe’s puppet. He will be prone to manipulation by this octogenarian and is useless for our cause as a nation.