Gono is gone. Phew!!!

Gono is going. Phew!!!

I will always stand by my opinion that Gono was totally out of his depth running a monetary system despite his bombastic talk of him being 'Your Governor'.

When Gono assumed office, the country had a reasonably strong and stable currency. At the time he left Zimbabwe had no currency of its own and had gone through period of record, currency devaluation driven hyperinflation that has never ever been experienced anywhere in the world since recorded history began. Most likely will never ever be experienced anywhere else in the world.

'Your Governor' was such a failure that he ended up scrounging in areas that had absolutely nothing to do with his job for some credit. He started buying tractors, scotch carts, cooking oil, chains, hoes and who knows what else to try and get some credit any way he could.

As a mark of his incompetence he started importing things like steel for scotch carts, and cooking oil, leading to a massive externalisation of funds and further collapse of the currency which he had the job to shore up.

The importations also led to the massive under utilisation of local manufacturing capacity, leading to eventual collapse of many of the industries like Ziscosteel, Olivine, Willowvale Motor Industries. These are still struggling to find their feet again after this knockout punch from Gono.

The only thing he succeeded in doing is fleece the forex funds of private entities, and run up a massive debt for the RBZ. Maybe there is no link between this running up of a massive debt for the state bank and him getting super rich in the process, but I am sure people do not need to be too imaginative to come up with any number of plausible theories to establish a link.

I know very well of the excuse that he had no choice because of pressure from politicians. Gono was employed to advise politicians correctly, not for him to be advised incorrectly by politicians. Therefore that excuse is a damning admission that he was unable to do his job.

I also know of the excuse that the country was under sanctions by some Western countries. Well the very same country did not implode monetarily while under stricter sanctions by the entire world.

Gono is also leaving behind a massive legal black hole for the government which he created by simply taking money from people's accounts without their consent.

In his heyday Gono had the mentality of a village headman. He considered his word to be the law (Zvandataura ndizvozvo!). He forgot that in this day and age the law is written down and no matter who you are, you have to start by understanding what is written down. Munhu nzwisisa zvakanyorwa mumutemo usati wapaparika.

That is why large organisations always have a legal department. Their job is to carefully scrutinise actions and decisions to make sure they are within the written law. I would expect the RBZ had such a department.

The basic foundation of the law is the constitution and that clearly says you do not expropriate someone's private property. Money in whatever form is private property. You do not take it without the owners' agreement.

The RBZ under Gono did it. As several court rulings have already shown, that was a massive mistake. It has saddled the state with potentially ruinous debt. It also drove out thousands of investors, local and foreign, out of the country.

I personally invested thousands of American dollars in Zimbabwe, which I had earned outside the country. That was around 2003. In less than five years I walked out of the country with basically the clothes on my back to look for a job again.

An uncle got his pension after having been a teacher for 43 years. When he got it, the pension could have bought him a truckload of cement. In less than three months, the very same amount could not but half a loaf of bread. And it was still in the bank.

Thousands of teachers, soldiers, policemen, civil servants and other workers who retired during the Gono era faced similar circumstances. I have met tens of them, all of them patriotic Zimbabweans, who faced the ignominy of having entire decades of saving and planning laid to waste by Gono's ignorant monetary policies.

That is the kind of bitter memory that Gono leaves behind. A very bad taste in the mouth. I do not regret him going. I do regret him ever having been governor.

I am an atheist, but this is the one time, that I will hope that some higher authority will hold Gono to account.