In a space of two years, Gono successfully slashed a total of 25 zeroes. The name Gono, arguably one of the most corrupt public officials during Mugabe’s regime, cannot feature in the same sentence with the word genius. Given his supreme arrogance, it might very well be that the embattled Governor bribed Mr Bloch to publicly endorse him by bizarrely painting him as a ‘genius’. Remember Mr Gono vainly tried to rehabilitate his already-withered reputation in his pathetically written and self-aggrandizing book entitled ‘Casino Economy.’ (What a waste of money!)
Mr Erich Bloch’s recent attempts to characterize the failed Reserve Bank Governor of Zimbabwe Gideon Gono as a genius are testament to how political patronage has taken precedence over economic sense in Zimbabwe. Even though Mr Bloch was already rapidly becoming irrelevant, what really compels intelligent people like him to volunteer themselves to insult an already hurting general populace of Zimbabwe is beyond us. The people of Zimbabwe deserve nothing less than a complete national apology from Mr Bloch.
There is no disagreement that the world’s highest inflation rate ever recorded in history occurred under Mr Gono’s tenure which was marked by complete financial chaos. Mr Gono’s culpability as an accomplice of President Robert Mugabe in destroying the once thriving economy of Zimbabwe is incontestable. What kind of advice was Mr Bloch giving Mr Gono given this colossal economic failure?
Fortunately, Mr Bloch’s opinions do not reflect those of the rest of the Zimbabwean people. Zimcitizen.com has written to the internationally renowned Gallup Organization requesting them to conduct a survey to find out what people really think about Mr Bloch’s assertions that Mr Gono is a ‘genius’as well as his (un)favorability ratings. In August 2008, before the cholera outbreak and a spike in politically-motivated violence, it was the same leading barometer of public opinion, Gallup Poll, which revealed Mr Mugabe’s approval rating among Zimbabweans domiciled in Zimbabwe as 17%.
To better debug Mr Bloch’s myth that Mr Gono is a ‘genius’ there is need to look at his entire role during the Mugabe regime. Mr Gono’s name is synonymous with Mr Mugabe for a variety of reasons but chiefly because he has long been known as Mugabe’s personal banker and one of his closest allies. As a senior civil servant, Mr Gono was privatized, in turn, he agreed to sacrifice his public responsibilities for private good. Recently, as Mr Mugabe declared that “Gono will not go” his military brass declared that “we can take up arms if they try to dethrone the Governor.”
Mr Gono sponsored Mr Mugabe’s violent and bloody attacks on perceived enemies of the State who were overwhelmingly defenseless citizens – members of the opposition, MDC. Most notoriously, as an executive member of the much-dreaded Joint Operations Command, his hands are dripping with blood of hundreds of innocent civilians who never lived to see this so-called new Zimbabwe. Mr Gono and Mr Mugabe have legacies that are strangely alike.
Mr Gono is increasingly refusing to go in spite of conventional wisdom that Zimbabwe is now at a stage where new blood is needed. In line with terms laid out in the Global Political Agreement, there is an urgent need to heed calls by the well-meaning Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Finance Minister, Tendai Biti that Mr Gono’s departure “is important so that we restore the legitimacy, credibility and integrity of the Reserve Bank.”
To gain a perspective of his governorship of the Reserve Bank, Mr Gono assumed office in December 2003 when inflation was 600%. A year later, Mr Gono made erroneous but upbeat assurances that “in 2005, the inflation rate is projected to continue to decline steadily through the year to end between 20 and 35 percent,” even though all economic indicators suggested that the economy was headed for the intensive care unit. Obviously his projection was drunk. In fact it became a pattern of his leadership style throughout: inspired by fortune-telling instead of sound economics and ethical practices.
Statistics from the Government of Zimbabwe’s Central Statistical Office (CSO) showed that by October 2008, official inflation rate was 231 million% even though projections by many economists were well-over 5 sextillion percent, according to The Times, February 4, 2009. According to Professor Steve Hanke, renowned economist of Johns Hopkins University and Cato Institute Senior Fellow, who developed the Hanke Hyperinflation Index for Zimbabwe (HHIZ), by September 2009 Zimbabwe’s inflation was as high as 89.7 sextillion percent.
If removing zeroes from the national currency, a not-so-rare-occurrence under Mr Gono’s tenure, is tantamount to acts of genius, then Mr Bloch is not being disingenuous. The man (Mr Gono), has no shame for such pathetic performance. He bragged about anything. Early this year (February 2, 2009), during one of his unpopular zero-removing ceremonies, he had the audacity to say “This Monetary Policy Statement unveils yet another necessary program of revaluing our local currency, through the removal of 12 zeroes, with immediate effect.” The highest currency (dollar bill) at that time (February 2, 2009) was 100 trillion which was equivalent to 30 US cents.
Prior to that, six months earlier (July 30 2008), he had slashed ten zeroes from the local currency. Mr Gono announced that “the Zimbabwe dollar will be redenominated by a factor of one to 10, which means we are removing 10 zeros from our monetary value. Ten billion dollars today will be reduced to one dollar with effective from August 1, (2008)”. Even the bearer checks introduced 3 years earlier were cosmetic solutions to deep-seated economic problems. There was no mention of how the Governor was going to address the hyperinflationary environment. In a space of two years, Gono successfully slashed a total of 25 zeroes.
The name Mr Gono, arguably one of the most corrupt public officials during Mugabe’s regime, cannot feature in the same sentence with the word genius. Given his supreme arrogance, it might very well be that the embattled Governor bribed Mr Bloch to publicly endorse him by bizarrely painting him as a ‘genius’. Remember Mr Gono vainly tried to rehabilitate his already-withered reputation in his pathetically written and self-aggrandizing book entitled ‘Casino Economy.’ (What a waste of money!)
At first we were tempted to call Mr Bloch’s behavior the equivalent of what the former US Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan referred to as an instance of ‘irrational exuberance’. But again Mr Bloch is not that economically naïve as to be blind to the damage that Mr Gono’s policies have caused. (But alas, he never had any!) Upon further reflection we concluded that this did not come as a coincidence but a well-orchestrated attempt that coerced Mr Bloch to sanitize Mr Gono.
Mr Bloch is not alone, he is not the first intellectual to surprise the nation by displaying such weird public behavior. Professor Jonathan Moyo fits in that category perfectly, even though he is still prostituting and switching sides whenever it becomes convenient for him to do so.
Shortages of everything defined Mr Gono’s tenure. They ranged from shortages of local currency, foreign currency, food, fuel, water, medical supplies, educational supplies, toilet paper and everything imaginable. Life in Zimbabwe was characterized by long queues. When the cholera outbreak (caused by shortages in sewer treatment chemicals, hence contaminated water) finally hit last year, over three thousand people died. Another argument for Mr Gono’s culpability! To this present day, the disease is still ‘alive and well’ having infected over 100 000 people.
In essence Mr Gono became a co-CEO of one of the world’s leading money printing companies, Giesecke & Devrient based in Germany which had the monopoly of supplying planeloads of Zimbabwe’s quintillion bank notes. Even though they told us that they were under targeted sanctions, that did not stop them from shipping their flowers to Europe, importing the bank notes from Germany or getting Chinese ships full of tear gas and police equipment to use them against defenseless citizens.
In October 2008, speaking to the government owned Herald, Mr Gono said, “I must reiterate that I am going to print and print and sign the money until sanctions are removed and there is balance-of-payments support. It’s a commitment I am ready to be fired for because we need money for infrastructural development.” Doesn’t economics 101 teach that printing money is a recipe for inflation?
By his own admission, Mr Gono stated that the Reserve Bank confiscated multi-million dollars in private and personal foreign currency accounts, junta-style. According to Mr Bloch, only a genius could do that. The international aid agency Global Fund, a victim of such malpractices threatened to pull out of Zimbabwe unless Mr Gono returned its US$7.3 million that was arbitrarily raided by Mr Gono.
As the country’s coffers intermittently ran dry, Zimbabwe saw the resurgence of barter trade, one of the oldest forms of commerce, which dates back to the beginning of civilization. Many companies were prompted to use barter trade. In August 2008, auctioneers Hammer and Tongues wasted no time announcing their newest innovation called “auction by barter” where dozens of cars and other goods became readily available for bidding payable by gas coupons. Against a backdrop of financial hardships, the company announced that it was time for “homegrown solutions for Zimbabweans. Now we are selling in liters not in dollars.”
We fully understand that Mr Bloch has spent so many years in the comfortable company of an irresponsible Reserve Bank Governor who with the help of his master, plunged Zimbabwe into a tumultuous vortex of this economic whirlwind but eulogizing Mr Gono for his gargantuan failures is a shame.
If this is what Mr Eric Bloch calls ‘genius,’ then we have one request, in his second life may he come back as a reptile!
