HARARE- Controversial Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono has sensationally claimed that his unilateral appointment by President Robert Mugabe was no longer a contested issue in the coalition government.
The argument put forward by the regime’s blue-eyed boy is that Finance minister Tendai Biti, whose party made the objection, officially appointed him the chairman of the RBZ board in April last year. This Gono argues now legally makes him the substantive central bank governor.
“As you know, my reappointment has been the subject of several misconceptions and ill-informed debate among many stakeholders and I have refrained from getting involved in that debate,’ he told journalists.
“Suffice to say that I serve at the pleasure of he who appoints me and consequent upon that the public will be aware that my boss the Minister of Finance announced to the nation in April last year that I had been appointed chairman of the RBZ board and as you are aware the RBZ Act confers the chairmanship of the RBZ board to the sitting governor so I don’t want to get involved in this debate,” he added.
Under Gono the central bank involved itself in several quasi-fiscal activities which were meant to prop up Mugabe’s regime. The end result was hyper-inflation fuelled mainly by the uncontrolled printing of worthless money. Last week over 1400 workers at the bank were laid off as Biti stripped the bank of its extra functions and forced them to focus on core activities.
