Zimbabwe’s central bank has become the key battleground in the fight for control of the unity government, with tensions rising over a Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) move to approach the Southern African Development Community to end disputes still dogging the coalition.
The extent of a long-running row between central bank governor Gideon Gono and finance minister Tendai Biti is revealed in a confidential letter Gono wrote to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai pleading for ”protection” and accusing Biti of money-laundering.
The Mail & Guardian has seen a voluminous dossier that Gono has handed to Tsvangirai claiming to show that Biti’s law firm, Honey & Blanckenberg, siphoned over a $1-million to an offshore bank account.
On Thursday Biti dismissed the claim as ”rubbish”, saying if there was anything to them, due process would have taken its course. By making the allegations Gono was trying to divert attention from his failures, Biti said.
Gono’s future is one of the most bitterly disputed issues in the government. President Robert Mugabe reappointed him against the wishes of his coalition partners, who blame him for Zimbabwe’s hyperinflation.
As it reached 100 days this week, the unity government appeared at its weakest, with the lack of movement on agreed political reforms prompting the MDC to refer outstanding issues to the SADC and the African Union at the weekend. Zanu-PF chief negotiator Nicholas Goche rejected the bid, saying deadlock has not yet been declared.
The dispute partly revolves around the battle for control of aid. About $1-billion in credit lines has been secured from foreign banks, but none of this has been channelled through the central bank, controlled by Gono, Mugabe’s ally.
This has heightened tensions amid growing impatience over lack of progress on numerous outstanding issues.
In his angry 15-page letter to Tsvangirai, Gono demands ”immunity” from what he sees as personal attacks by Biti. ”On several occasions, the distinguished minister has accused me of killing this economy through printing money,” Gono says. Had he not printed money, he argues ”this country could have easily degenerated into unprecedented chaos”.
Gono accuses Biti of trying to intimidate him into ending the probe into his law firm and asks Tsvangirai for ”immunity at law against victimisation by ministers, some of who may have been involved in nefarious activities before”.
Gono gives himself credit for the economic reforms of the past 100 days, criticising Biti for claiming the glory. According to Gono, ”99%” of Biti’s measures have been borrowed from the Reserve Bank. His relationship with Biti is that of ”pursuer and the pursued”, he says.
At a meeting last weekend, the MDC’s national council listed among its grievances continued farm invasions; Mugabe’s refusal to swear in Roy Bennett, Tsvangirai’s nominee for deputy agriculture minister; the failure to form the National Security Council, a committee of top security and government officials of which Tsvangirai is a member; the detentions of activists and journalists, and continued state media bias.
Although the new government has brought some economic stability, there has been little political movement. Civic groups celebrated this week after police allowed marches by radical women’s activist group Woza and lawyers to proceed without beatings or arrests.
The MDC fears that Zimbabwe will head into new elections without real reform. At the MDC meeting, hopes were expressed that South Africa’s new government will take a tougher line. But a senior party official told the M&G he felt his party was expecting too much of Jacob Zuma.