Zimbabwe’s bank chief Gideon Gono did not hold his long-awaited name-and-shame meeting with a parliamentary committee this week because Parliament has adjourned until April, state radio said on Tuesday.
Gono, the head of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ), was on Monday scheduled to give a damning report on top officials he calls cash barons, who have allegedly been hoarding large sums of cash.
But the meeting did not take place because Parliament has adjourned until after presidential and parliamentary elections some time in March, said the report.
”Dr Gono shall be summoned by a new committee to be constituted after the general elections,” the radio quoted the clerk of Parliament Austin Zvoma as saying.
Cash shortages have made life difficult for millions of Zimbabweans since late last year. Long winding bank queues are a daily feature of Zimbabwe’s streets.
The injection of new high-denomination bank notes last week has so far done little to ease the shortages.
Gono’s first offer to testify on cash hoarders before the parliamentary finance committee was turned down in December. The head of the committee, ruling party MP David Butau, was apparently reluctant to summon him.
Butau has since fled to Britain after police said they wanted to investigate him over suspected exchange control violations. Butau says he was shopped to the police by Gono. – Sapa-DPA