SINCE the inception of the coalition government, the disputed governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, Gideon Gono, has displayed disquieting tendencies that have demonstrated beyond doubt why he should be summarily evicted from the central bank.

From the day that Tendai Biti took over as the Minister of Finance and put a full stop to the central bank’s quasi-fiscal misadventures, Gono, who is apparently very bitter, has been running in all directions like a headless chicken.

With the assistance of hired foot-soldiers in the state media, especially the Herald and the Sunday Mail, the emasculated governor has launched a sinister campaign to sabotage and vilify everything good that the minister of finance is trying to do to turn around the economy.

Gono’s well publicised tomfoolery has not only served to annoy the majority of hopeful Zimbabweans but is now threatening to derail strategic operations of the ministry which has been given the crucial task of resuscitating the economy which collapsed when he was in charge as quasi-finance minister between 2003 and 2008.

Among other outstanding issues, Gono’s contested presents in the unity government, at the expense of the integrity of the central bank, is also the reason why the delicate coalition is now disconnected and facing collapse.

Gono’s evil and doomed campaign to sabotage and vilify Biti can be captured in four episodes which have received remarkable media publicity not because they are newsworthy but because the governor has always used bribes to persuade underpaid journalists from the state media to write PR articles on his behalf which are always passed as business news.

No wonder small-time journalists at the Sunday Mail and the Herald now drive expensive cars -- Mahindra trucks -- which they cannot afford considering their paltry salaries, but were sourced by Gono through the central bank in 2007 using taxpayers’ money.

Immediately after the appointment of Biti in February, a bitter Gono went on the offensive accusing the minister of having a personal vendetta against him when Biti demanded that the governor should be relieved of his job not only because he had failed in his duties as evidenced by the comatose economy but also because his appointment was unprocedural in terms of the Global Political Agreement (GPA).

Gono went to the desperate measure of writing a long letter to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai pitching the preposterous allegation that Biti was out to settle a personal score against him although it is common place that everybody in the MDC, including the Prime Minister, knows the naked truth that Gono’s appointment is irregular in terms of the letter and spirit of the GPA.

What Gono was trying to achieve with his long letter was to try and put a wedge between the minister and the prime minister in the naive hope that he would successfully recruit the prime minister to fight in his corner against Biti.
But everybody now knows that Gono’s long letter, written in broken English in most parts, was rejected before it landed on the Prime Minister’s desk.

The second highlight of Gono’s doomed campaign was his call in August for the return of the inflationary Zimbabwe dollar, a dead horse that he has successfully sold to Zanu PF loyalists including President Robert Mugabe who is part of the discordant orchestra advocating the revival of the useless local currency.

From the look of things, the ageing Mugabe does not even believe in the chorus he is being made to sing beyond the singular fact that his embattled banker is the one leading the choir.

Biti has made it clear that he will resign from the government if he is put under undue pressure to revive the dead and buried Zimbabwe dollar for the simple reason that the currency had become an instrument of arbitrage and rent-seeking behaviour during Gono’s reign as quasi-finance minister.

And that should be good news to Gono whose four-pronged campaign is to vilify, sabotage, frustrate and displace the Minister of Finance by any means necessary.

But it is also the reason why the MDC will not allow Biti who has done a sterling job so far to resign from his post come rain or sunshine.

The most recent highlight of Gono’s atavistic tendencies has been the absurd allegation that Biti is blocking capital injections from international financial institutions.

Over the past few weeks, Gono has been using his attack dogs in the state media to peddle the scurrilous allegation that Biti is blocking a total of US$800m from the International Monetary Fund, the Preferential Trade Area Bank and the African Import and Export Bank.

Everybody except Gono and his friends in Zanu PF knows that Biti cannot block funds which are meant to help resuscitate the comatose economy when the same minister has been going around the world with a begging bowl trying to raise such funds.

It is on record that for the past eight months, the Finance Minister and the Prime Minister have criss-crossed the globe, visiting Britain, German, Belgium, the Netherlands and USA among other countries, trying to raise billions of United States dollars that are urgently needed to get Zimbabwe’s economy working again.

Nobody except the superstitious dead wood in the Zanu PF leadership – who believe that diesel can be extracted from a rock -- will believe the hogwash that Biti is going out of his way to block badly needed loans from donor institutions when the minister knows more than anybody else how badly the country needs that money.

And where loans have been extended to the coalition government by the international community, Gono has relentlessly sought to usurp Biti’s powers by demanding that he be allowed to decide how the money should be used when that fiscal role is the sole function of the Minister of Finance while the governor may only give advice, nothing more nothing less.

What is coming out clearly from Gono’s mischief is that Zanu PF is trying to resurrect the bygone era of quasi-fiscal insanity where the minister of finance took instructions from the central bank governor instead of the other way round.

It remains imperative to remind Gono that he is an illegal Reserve Bank Governor whose appointment is not recognised by the GPA which gave birth to the coalition government that he purports to be serving.

Remember being a senior civil servant, Gono’s appointment was supposed to be done after consultations among the three principals of the unity government coming as it did three months after the signing of the GPA on September 15, 2008.

The Prime Minister has made it clear that these mandatory consultations did not take place which makes Gono’s appointment null and void regardless of what President Mugabe thinks or says.

The lie being peddled by Zanu PF mandarins that the appointment of Gono was made before the signing of the GPA will not fool anyone because everybody knows that Gono was re-appointed by President Mugabe three months after the GPA on December 1, 2008, after his five-year term expired on 31 November 2008.

Gono and those who have supported his unprocedural appointment are making the ignorant and dangerous assumption that President Mugabe is the sum total of the unity government with the final say on all GPA matters when he obviously is not – that is why it’s called a coalition.

If the unity government collapses today, Gono should be prepared to shoulder culpability for this national catastrophe and to live with the wrath of the suffering masses who will blame him eternally for refusing to vacate office when the cohesion and success of the unity government depended on it.

Strictly speaking, what is urgent now is for Gono to be evicted from 80 Samora Machel Avenue before he achieves his sadistic ambition to resuscitate the dead and buried era of quasi-fiscal madness where the central bank was a major player in the opaque black market economy.

After his eviction, maybe we may then talk about why Gono should be investigated for corruption and criminal conduct during his tenure at the central bank between December 2003 and November 2008.

The truth of the matter is that in the coalition government, we have a problem called Gideon Gono and as such all Zimbabweans need to look this individual and his intentions with suspicion and doubt.

Gono’s track record will continue to tarnish the integrity of the unity government which will not succeed in attracting major financial assistance from the larger international community for as long as the coalition retains incompetent and corrupt civil servants within its ranks.

The bottom line is that Zimbabwe’s government of national unity will be better off without this blundering civil servant.

Jacob Rukweza is the MDC councillor for Ward 17 in Chitungwiza