Governor Gideon Gono must resign

By Jacob Nkiwane

To begin with, I am not sure how to address Governor Gideon Gono. The confusion stems from his disputed academic achievements which surfaced during the messy confrontation between him and his former advisor.

The alleged cheating in attaining his PhD qualifications is an interesting dimension which brings to question the integrity of a man entrusted with the monetary matters of our country.

The office of the central bank governor of any country is highly respected. The governor is someone who is entrusted with the country’s financial instruments and must have utmost good faith. The governor must be a good steward to the people’s bank of trust.

The office holder must be someone who embodies superb qualities of intellect and integrity which are critical to earning the role of a trusted advisor. The signature inscription on the country’s bank notes says it all. It is a seal of trust bestowed upon the governor by the people.

Whilst no one doubts the governor‘s experience in the financial sector before his appointment, his performance during his tenure don’t seem to corroborate the arguments for experience as an important attribute to the post.

The problems which bedevilled our banking sector for the last ten years reflect on Governor Gono as a highly incompetent governor. Since his appointment in 2003, the country’s financial sector has been in free fall. He assumed office with promises to reform and sanitise the banking sector.

Notably, he specified a number of shareholders and directors for various malpractices, creating banking consortiums such as ZABG for which he was later accused of underhand share deals. Whilst the motives appeared genuine on paper, subsequent accusations of personal enrichment make it impossible to ignore the seemingly well calculated plan to benefit from the commotion.

Today our country does not have currency of its own. We lost it under his governorship. As it turned out, the money printing activities and all quantitative easing done at the central bank were not for the benefit of the country but rather his own. The extent of the devaluation we faced surpassed all known levels in the history of monetary policy record keeping.

The recklessness with which our central bank was managed was beyond comprehension. People lost their wealth and lifelong savings overnight. Majority of people who had worked their entire lives to save for their children’s education woke up to find their efforts had gone to waste. His monetary policies wiped out pensions for the elderly who had planned to retire in dignity, only to end up condemned to retirement in poverty.

Companies and organisations lost their foreign currency reserves under the guise of mobilising resources for national economic good. It seems all the sacrifices and pains we endured were never for the benefit of our country. Instead, they were meant to finance the governor’s unending quest to live a lavish lifestyle at the expense of the suffering masses.

The on-going allegations by his former advisor Dr Kereke are truly shocking. What makes the allegations more interesting is the fact that they are coming from someone privileged to have worked closely with the governor. It will be reasonable to assume the allegations have nothing to do with politics but rather a result of a tag of war between once close allies.

The details suggest a well detailed case for Governor Gono to answer. They appear like a tip of the iceberg of events and dealings at our central bank. A country’s central bank was turned into a personal trading enterprise, looted of the little resources the country desperately needed.

The alleged disposal of central bank gold bullions at questionable discounts to some jeweller in Saudi Arabia smells of some shady and nefarious dealings by the governor. It is worsened by the alleged diversion of central bank cash worth millions for personal gain at a time when the rest of the country was crumbling and almost on its knees.

The amounts involved are huge sums of money which could have gone a long way in importing our much needed fuel, pay salaries for our teachers, nurses, police, soldiers and the rest of our public service. The alleged use of his subordinates to accomplish such gross acts of national sabotage means the whole central bank structure can no longer be trusted to serve the interests of the country.

The Reserve Bank board must be dissolved for it failed to institute both operational and security mechanisms to protect the country’s resources.

Probably the allegations explain why the banking sector as a whole is corrupt. Time and again we hear of some bank shareholders and directors who are caught up in the scramble for undue personal enrichment. Some award themselves loans which are either not properly approved or secured.

In the end some banks collapsed as a result of failure by these directors and shareholders to repay the loans. Prudential lending guidelines and international best practices are constantly ignored. Depositors’ funds are becoming petty cash jars from which money is used for non-business related activities.

Can anyone blame these bank shareholders and directors? They learnt from the master himself. If the watchman is a thief, then who will watch the watchman? How can he preach to others what he fails to do himself? The governor can no longer have the morale standing to supervise the work of both his subordinates and operations of other banks. His leadership qualities are compromised. As a result the banking sector is in shambles.

In the interest of transparency and justice, Governor Gono must resign and concentrate on clearing his name. The allegations he is facing are very grave and disturbing. Any effort to investigate may not succeed if he is allowed to remain in office. He is likely to pervert the course of justice.

He must pave way for an acting governor whilst investigations are carried out. If he is not prepared to resign, President Mugabe should immediately fire him and replace him with somebody better qualified to assume the roles of the central bank governor.

Jacob Nkiwane can be contacted on [email protected]