Gono has become a Forex Baron of Repute

By Levi Mhaka

Published on December 12, 2007

The Herald newspaper of December 15, 2007, reports that the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) Governor, Mr. Gideon Gono told the ZANU (PF) congress on Friday that the central bank had released over $67 trillion onto the market but could only account for $2 trillion as at close of business on Wednesday this week. He said that $2 trillion is the money which was at the various banks across the country and the people are spending days and nights in queues looking for cash.

If we estimate that there are 14 million people in Zimbabwe, let us estimate that half this number is economically active as formally and informally employed. It means at any one time, each person is expected to hold slightly more than $9,5 million. What do you do with $9,5 million.

The governor is therefore misleading the nation. A housemaid is being paid $20 million per month and with the current earnings and prices, the cash in circulation is not enough.

The central bank has been financing the procurement of agricultural mechanisation equipment, fertilizers, seeds, agro-chemicals, fuel, electrcity and other expenses requiring forex. Recently 220 motor vehicles were imported by the RBZ for the ruling party. These things are not bought by cash by through forex deals that are paid for in local currency through bank transfers. Therefore the so called cash barons are small players in the forex market.

Each of the transanctions involving forex, as sanctioned by the RBZ, are paid for at 'black' market rates. This explains why CZI, ZNCC and other various observers will tell you that RBZ is propping up the 'black' market as the ultimate source of local currency for the forex sold and bought at the 'black' market to finance the procurement of agricultural mechanisation equipment, fertilizers, seeds, agro-chemicals, fuel, electrcity and other expenses requiring forex.

While as a nation we are desperate to pay for critical imported necessities, has Presdient Robert Mugabe stopped to wonder what is the source of the forex being used to pay for all these by the RBZ. By not tracking the trasanctions, President Mugabe is behaving like a father who does not enquire about the source of money from a daughter who is unmarried and unemployed while she fully supplies the home with all the requirements.

The RBZ has no other source of forex to meet all these national obligations except printing money and then buy forex in the 'black' market. The claim about free funds is incomplete in itself. The person with free funds wants to be paid in local currency and charges his money at 'black' market rates. Those few people with access to the so-called free funds have a willing buyer (RBZ) through numerous middlemen with unlimited cash supply because it is simply printed and transferred into bank accounts ready to go into the market to buy forex.

Read the For this, the RBZ Governor is a forex baron and the biggest beneficiary of the economic crisis. It is very easy to apportion blame to other people, except himself.

The RBZ Governor is not different from John Arnold Bredenkamp, a South Africa-born businessman and Chairman of Breco Companies (www.breco.info), who benefited most from the international sanctions against Rhodesia. A Breco subsidiary, Masters International, manages several well known cricketers, rugby players and golfers, as well as Gary Kasparov, the Russian chess master.

Once in charge of the financial affairs of the Rhodesian Defence Forces, Bredenkamp was involved in sanctions busting for the Smith regime in return for a highly lucrative concession to export tobacco from Rhodesia. He went on to turn his company, Casalee, into a multi-million pound empire with offices around the world, including Windsor.

Gono is involved in sanctions busting for the good of Zimbabwe in return for a good life without his principals minding about the source of income outsode his formal job. He has positioned himself politically. He overwhelms and has monopolises the President with the 'goodies' that the Minister of Finance cannot imagine being able to provide.

While it might sound morally repugnant to compare the RBZ Governor with John Bredenkamp, because Bredenkamp was benefitting from an illegal settler regime. One cannot help it because of the level of personal benefit he has achieved from the time he was the Commercial Bank of Zimbabwe (CBZ) Managing Director. His business interests are now wide and deeper into all sectors of the economy - media, banking and finance in general, energy, property, stockbroking, mining, construction, etc.