Gono, like so many others in Mugabe’s inner circle, owns a farm. “We now have the biggest chicken hatching project in Africa, and we are the only black farmers doing that,” said Gono.
A few months ago, the UK Observer Newspaper reported of a foreign currency scam in Zimbabwe. All foreign currency coming into the country was sold to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe at the official exchange rate. The Bank then sold the forex to the ruling elite and the selected few at the official exchange rate and they in turn sold it on the black market at the black market rate. The difference between the official rate and the black market rate at the time was a staggering 800%.
Some lucky, lucky people made pots and pots for money! At the time, someone told of a Zimbabwean student studying in UK who brought back from Zimbabwe £45 000.00 cash. The student was the son of junior government official!
Ever since the Zimbabwe economy took a nose dive in 2000, more and more Zimbabweans were forced to depend of Diaspora- dollar just to buy the basics of life. It was this dollar the RBZ targeted; robbing the poorest of the poor.
The RBZ did not have to do much other than print money and the bank’s printer was working a three shift. Inflation meant nothing to the regime’s rich, the RBZ printed money with more and more zeros. The rich benefited from the runaway inflation in that the difference between the official rate and the black market rate soared. Again it was the ordinary people who lost out; they found themselves holding on to worthless money.
Gideon Gono as the Governor of the RBZ he controlled the whole scam. Millions of dollars have disappeared from individual and companies’ RBZ account. It is not inconceivable that the Governor helped himself to just $1.25 million at 800% mark-up he was a billionaire overnight! So why should anyone be surprised to hear the RBZ governor boost of having the best chicken farm in Africa. The farm is 10 km long!
Gono help many, many others make pots and pots of money. Of course none of these individuals would hear of Gono losing his job. Gono himself would not want to lose his position as governor; he could run his multi-billion dollar Farm and God-knows what other multi-billion dollar ventures he has besides. He wants to remain governor because the bank is the only source of ease money.
Gono’s investment ventures are booming with the smaller Zanu PF fries’ farms are going to waste not because the later do not have “farming in their genes” as Gono would have us believe. Gono has poured millions into his chicken farm; to him money has never been an issue. But if he lost his job at the RBZ, things might be different!
Mugabe’s dictatorship created two worlds; one for the ruling elite who lived in total luxury and a few of them have become filth rich. The second world was for the ordinary Zimbabweans, constituting 90% of the population, who were forced into a life of abject poverty and unimaginable despair.
It is great to see a fellow man prosper but not people like Gono. He, like all the new rich created by the Mugabe dictatorship, made fortunes by riding rough shod over the poor. That is the kind of greed and heartlessness that must be condemned.
No comments:
Post a Comment