Divergent groups — ranging from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to Cabinet ministers, the security establishment and the opposition — want Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono reined in, albeit for different reasons.
”Some of the issues he touches are outside his domain,” complained opposition Movement for Democratic Change shadow secretary for economic affairs, Tendayi Biti. ”His entanglement with quasi financial issues: providing money to local authorities and parastatals, his creation of the productive sector facility … Those issues should be dealt with by central government.”
This resonates with warnings from Intelligence and Land Reform Minister Didymus Mutasa, quoted in the state-controlled Sunday Mail as saying, ”financial institutions, including the Reserve Bank, had entered into contract farming programmes with white commercial farmers without checking the status of those farms”. He said that his ministry had not been consulted and was concerned about the ”side-lining [of] new farmers”.
Recently the IMF too cautioned that the governor was overstepping his jurisdiction. Gono’s delving into the political and economic arena has also caused embarrassment to security chiefs. During his Monetary Policy Statement last month the governor said defence force chief General Constantine Chiwenga had encouraged him to revive agriculture to avoid potential food riots. He said the general did not want his troops, accustomed to crushing dissent, to ”turn their guns on hungry Zimbabweans”.
Gono’s revelation ”raised unnecessary public fears about the army”, a senior Zanu-PF official told the Mail & Guardian. ”It was uncalled for and unsanctioned.”
Another member of Zanu-PF’s politburo also confided: ”He has become untouchable because he has the backing of the president. If you attack him, you risk being accused of lack of patriotism. There is a general impression he is a messiah to take Zimbabwe out of its economic quagmire.”
Every three months, Gono invites captains of industry, Cabinet ministers, army, air force, prisons and police chiefs, the media and diplomats to his monetary policy briefing, where he often comments on current political developments in the country.
Tensions with the governor have been simmering for some time but have been muted because ”many senior government officials … owe him gratitude for lending them money from the productive sector facility”, said another Zanu-PF source.
This mix of business and political interests, many commentators have pointed out, is central to the current factions that have formed in the ruling party. It is understood that the governor’s comments about government inefficiency, corruption and warnings of food riots have angered those aligned to the vice-president’s husband, retired general Solomon Mujuru.
”He is going too far in using his Reserve Bank platform to speak on -political issues,” said a senior Zanu-PF official and politburo heavyweight. ”Gono was effectively now the prime minister. He is now answerable only to the president [to whom] he has access day in and day out. Very few of us have that access to Gushungo [Mugabe’s clan name].”
Concerns about the governor have not been discussed in the Cabinet or the politburo, nor have they been raised with President Robert Mugabe, but disenchantment is gaining pace.