The Herald Lying at the Behest of Gono

By Levi Mhaka

On Monday 7 April 2008, the State-owned Herald newspaper had a front page story entitled "Zimbabwe: Tsvangirai Plans to Give Control of RBZ to Germans". It made me laugh and felt pity for the editorial team at the newspaper.

In the story, the newspaper alleged that the MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, "intends to give control of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) to German agents for up to one year in the event that he becomes State President."

The newspaper also claimed that Tsvangirai "also plans to change commanders of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, Zimbabwe National Army, Air Force of Zimbabwe, Commissioner-General of Police, Director-General of the Central Intelligence Organisation, the Chief Justice and Permanent Secretary for Finance, among other high-ranking officials."

As a sign of desperation of the incumbent RBZ Governor, Gono, he has been funding the State-owned media using loan funds meant for the intervention on the supply side of basic commodities. He is literary running the public media together with George Charamba, the Presidential Spokesman and Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Information and Publicity, as reckless propaganda outfits. The Herald has failed to subject many of its political stories using journalistic standards of truthfulness, accuracy, balance and fairness.

The newspaper went on to allege that the MDC's "transitional plan includes a restructuring of the RBZ that will see at least two agents from Germany's central bank playing key roles at the institution. The delivery of the central bank to the Germans will be among Tsvangirai's first directives in the event that he becomes President. Under the scheme, Tsvangirai will first relieve present Governor Dr Gideon Gono of his duties, appoint one of his deputies as acting boss and rope in the Germans to "advise" him."

As we wait for the High Court to make a ruling on the release of presidential and local authority election results, readers must be careful that we shall be seeing a lot more of these rabid levels of lying by people trying to protect themselves from the looming political changes.

One wonders why those who said they cannot salute Morgan Tsvangirai should not retire or resign on assumption of duty by a new government. What about one who had been running the only factory in Zimbabwe runnnning for 24 hours printing money to sponsor a partisan electoral venture? Core business of a central business has been abandoned. Why would a sane government allow such a person with distorted understanding of the central bank's role in an economy remain in office? This is the same person who has reduced the central bank into becoming a department in the President's office.

There is so much panic that we shall be seeing through pre-emptive lies in the State-owned media as the collective effort of Mugabe, Charamba, Gono, Elliot Manyika and the losing member of parliament, Patrick Chinamasa, further sink the economy by their shortsightedness, to protect their jobs.

The lying was in a higher gear on Tuesday 8 April 2008, when the same newspaper alleged that Tsvangirai has failed to secure the support of the Arthur Mutambara-led MDC for an opposition bloc that will have simple majority in the house of asembly.

This allegation defies reason. Let us look at it from another angle. Between the two parties (ZANU PF and MDC-Tsvangirai), who can receive votes from the voters who voted for Mutambara-led MDC? Alternatively, who would the person who voted for Mutambara-led MDC choose between the two choices - ZANU PF and MDC-Tsvangirai? Majority of the votes for the two MDCs and Simba Makoni have been derived from "as long its not ZANU PF" because of the economic conditions.

If Mutambara had wanted to work with ZANU PF from the onset, he should not have supported Makoni's candidature against ZANU PF. If he has a parliamentary pact with ZANU PF, it would mean ZANU PF controls simple majority in the House of Assembly together with the 10 parliamentarians from his faction. That is not being progressive!

From a gut feeling, one can easily tell that the 'natural' alliance for the Mutambara faction will be Simba Makoni as yet unlaunched political party.