The Danger of Unbridled, Unrestrained and Unconstrained Power

By Levi Mhaka

Published October 23, 2006

The issue regarding Phillip Chiyangwa’s Pinnacle Properties getting a license to deal in foreign currency to sell properties to non-resident Zimbabweans shows the extent to which unbridled, unrestrained and unconstrained power of the RBZ Governor can be abused.

Mr. (not Dr. please) Gideon Gono said: "It is illegal for any institution in Zimbabwe, other than Homelink (Pvt.) Ltd, to enter into foreign currency deals for the purposes of purchasing or renting property.” So “it is even illegal for” the RBZ “to enter into foreign currency deals…”

Although we are told that the RBZ are the sole shareholders of Homelink (Private) Limited, why should the responsibility of dealing with foreign currency be monopolized by a company not born out of an Act of Parliament?

Following the abolishment of money transfer agencies (MTAs), Homelink should also have been dissolved since it came into being and was directly linked to the existence of MTAs. Its website (www.homelinkzimbabwe.com) says “currently Homelink offers the following products, namely: … Money Transfer Agencies (MTAs)."

It was the registrar of MTAs that are no longer there!

The transfer of money is an ordinary line of business of banking institutions. Is it now illegal to do so through them? I am confident that one's relative can still send money through the banks.

Our legislature seem to be unsophisticated enough to deal with the RBZ Governor each time they call him to appear before a parliamentary committee. The legislative research teams seem to be either compromised or they are incompetent. The MPs allow him to lecture to them. He unreservedly responds to his critics without substance.

Typical of a politician, Mr. Gideon Gono did a newspaper interview speaking to himself. Reading the questions, one has a feeling that the governor crafted his own questions.

An interview is defined as a formal meeting in which one or more persons question, consult or a meeting or conversation in which a writer or reporter asks questions of one or more persons from whom material is sought for a newspaper story, television broadcast, etc. The newspaper should have informed us that the following are the responses to the questions sent to the RBZ governor. There was no ‘voice’ of the interviewer in the interview at all. Unfortunately, he responded to the questions by going into an overdrive without ever thinking someone has to find it painful to read since the length of responses were not reader-friendly.

There is also a feeling that the RBZ governor went into a panic mode if the online reports were true that he was summoned by the President over the Chiyangwa deal. Two pages ‘interview’ is are just too much for him and normally we expect such space to be made for the President of the country.

He has such an unrestrained and unconstrained access to the State media, whether print or electronic; the Financial Gazette and the Zimbabwe Mirror Newspapers stable.

We have a governor who talks too much! Compare him with his predecessors, Kombo Moyana and Leonard Tsumba; Tito Mboweni of South Africa, Alan Greenspan or his successor, Ben Bernanke, of the USA. All of them earned their doctorates of economics! Gideon Gono suffers from an inferiority complex that sees enemies all over. He requires management by his advisor, Munyaradzi Kereke, who just earned an economics doctorate.

In Japan , the Ministry of Finance (MoF) is such a powerful institution. Our governor here in Zimbabwe has usurped the Ministry of Finance's role in the economy. The Ministry has been reduced to be an economic 'herdman' or a 'housemaid'.