Gideon Gono: a villain or saint?

I WAS encouraged to learn that Dr. Gideon Gono, Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ), had agreed to use the New Zimbabwe.com platform to address questions from the New Zimbabwe.com family.
When the role of a central bank is put in its proper context, it is instructive that most governors would not take the evangelical or political posture in the execution of their mandates but in Zimbabwe there exists a unique environment that has catapulted the Governor into a quasi political animal with unprecedented exposure and profile.
In Zimbabwe’s 26 years as a democratic society, no governor has assumed the kind of power that Gono has and invariably his opinion and views have to be taken seriously.
In this vein, the staff of New Zimbabwe.com should be congratulated for providing an opportunity to interested people to engage in a conversation with one of Zimbabwe’s most important citizens. As I have always said, the only power people who do not have power have, is the power to organise.
Gono can boast of the vast resources at his disposal to spin and many may have accepted his use of unorthodox methods to address simple problems that confront Zimbabwe as normal and acceptable without critically examining the real and possibly irreparable danger that is inherent in the centralisation of power in a few hands with limited or no accountability.
The Zimbabwean economy has often been described as a patient in the intensive care unit and Gono has emerged as a specialist doctor to restore the life of this helpless patient.
Yes, Zimbabwe has known of only three black governors of the central bank since its independence but cannot claim the same in terms of its political leadership. It is common cause that Gono has been a governor for the last 36 months and his brief tenure will go down in history as a significant epoch event in the history of Zimbabwe. It is true that the role of the RBZ in the past 36 months may not be understood by many in the diaspora who are familiar with the institutional framework that underpins any democratic society.
Ordinarily, central banks do not deal with the public but focus on monetary policies and their clients are normally banks. Equally, the normal vehicle through which the resources of the government are allocated among competing interests is the budget and yet under Gono’s tenure, the RBZ now acts like a quasi-fiscal entity with direct commercial relationship with clients. No explanation has been provided regarding the basis on which a wholesaler can end up becoming a retailer without any institutional changes to support such a transformation.
There is a host of troubling constitutional, legal, political, and governance issues that arise out of the extraordinary role that Gono has found himself in. I will deal with these issues below using my own personal experience over the last three years. It is important that in taking advantage of the opportunity afforded to the New Zimbabwe.com family by Gono that the questions posed to him are focused and guided by national interest. With respect to national interest, it is important to underscore that this is a contested issue and there are many people in government that honestly believe that they have a monopoly to define what is in Zimbabwe’s national interest. Any person who may hold a different view is considered a saboteur and an enemy of the people of Zimbabwe.
In the event that you are considered to be acting against “Your Governor”, the consequences are clear and the benefits of compliance are self evident. I can safely say that the New Zimbabwe.com family may be the only constituency that Gono may not be able to inflict his poisonous medicine on but he is known to hold grudges with any person who may not see the world according to his eyes. It is instructive that the business sector in Zimbabwe has over the last three years been reduced to a docile force that is incapable of defending its own interests against an onslaught that is being perpetrated by the central banks through a variety of overt and clandestine activities. The supply chain role of companies and state institutions has now been taken over by the RBZ and suppliers to government institutions no longer have to go through tenders but only have to satisfy the RBZ whose capacity to be a broker in this complex business activity still has to be tested.
Patriotism
I have borrowed the definition of patriotism from the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, as follows: Patriotism denotes positive and supportive attitudes to a 'fatherland' (Latin patria), by individuals and groups. The 'fatherland' (or 'motherland') can be a region or a city, but patriotism usually applies to a nation and/or a nation-state. Patriotism covers such attitudes as: pride in its achievements and culture, the desire to preserve its character and the basis of the culture, and identification with other members of the nation. Patriotism is closely associated with nationalism, and is often used as a synonym for it. Strictly speaking, nationalism is an ideology - but it often promotes patriotic attitudes as desirable and appropriate. (Both nationalist political movements, and patriotic expression, may be negative towards other people's 'fatherland').
Patriotism has ethical connotations: it implies that the 'fatherland' (however defined) is a moral standard or moral value in itself. The expression my country right or wrong - perhaps a misquotation of the American naval officer Stephen Decatur, but also attributed to Carl Schurz - is the extreme form of this belief. Patriotism also implies that the individual should place the interests of the nation above their personal and group interests. In wartime, the sacrifice may extend to their own life. Death in battle for the fatherland is the archetype of extreme patriotism.
Gono has successfully manipulated the nationalist pedigree of Zanu PF to locate his policies under a general umbrella of nationalism with a clear strategy to ensure that any critics can easily be labeled as unpatriotic with disastrous consequences. Most fascist regimes in human history have used the same strategy with national and international consequences. When you hear any governor of a central bank using nationalistic language as a way to advance unpopular policies and programs you should have to be concerned.
Rule of Law
The importance of the rule of law and not rule by law is an important ingredient of any democratic civilization. It is important that the New Zimbabwe.com family critically evaluate the multitude of decrees that have been promulgated by President Mugabe under Gono’s tenure to determine whether Your Governor believes in the rule of law. Surely, if the laws of the nation are inadequate, why would Gono not trust parliament to review such laws and pass new ones?
Against a background of a contested political space that has an opposition represented in parliament, one would not expect a governor of a central bank, itself a creation of the law, to act outside the provisions of the law using nationalistic and state of emergency language. I am sure that legal scholars are counting the number of statutory instruments that have been gazetted during Gono’s tenure and test such instruments against the Bill of Rights entrenched in the constitution of Zimbabwe. New crimes have been manufactured dealing with externalisation and corporate governance that would be offensive to any country that believes in a constitutional democracy. I do hope that questions can be posed to Gono on this regard. Ultimately, right policies induce good behaviour and policies that are informed by real national interest would respect property and human rights of citizens.
Corporate Governance at the RBZ
The RBZ is a body corporate whose functions are defined at law. There is a perception rightly or wrongly that Gono is behaving like the owner of the bank and his actions would not pass the test of good corporate governance. Examples are many that clearly demonstrate that the RBZ under Gono is no longer accountable to its board and in turn to the parliament of Zimbabwe. It would not be surprising that the parliament of Zimbabwe whose legitimacy is derived from the people is not aware of the full extent of the activities of the RBZ and how they are undermining the constitutional democracy that they purport to be upholding by remaining in parliament.
We have noted with concern the scandals that are unfolding at the RBZ including the Pinnaclegate, Fertilisergate and SMMgate all serving to demonstrate that there is something fundamentally wrong taking place at the RBZ. What is amazing is that the domestic media appears to have been sufficiently compromised to the extent that these scandals are not pursued to their logical conclusion. Can you imagine for example if a person like James Makamba was involved in the Fertilisergate, what would have been the attitude of Gono?
Selective targeting
The selective application of the law remains one of the key defining characteristic of Gono’s tenure. Although all men are born equal, it is evident that they are all not equal before the law. The reliance of private rational economic players on the parallel market in the allocation of scare foreign currency is well known and the RBZ is not immune from participating in the black market. However, anyone who is defined as patriotic is spared the humiliation and harassment by the RBZ using the law enforcement agencies.
Theft of Private Property
It is common cause that a constitutional amendment was required to expropriate land from the historically advantaged white settler community because the constitution of Zimbabwe did not have a provision allowing the government to assume ownership of private property without qualifying the Bill of Rights of the target group.
However, not all Zimbabwean land owners benefited from a colonial heritage and yet the definition of the targeted land for expropriation was not amended to isolate only those whose ownership was a direct result of colonial abuse. The approach taken rightly or wrongly was that all land should be treated as if it was stolen and, therefore, all land owners were brushed with the same broom. Having established that all land was stolen from black Africans by whites, the next step was easy and to date no African country has been convinced about the unfairness in the blanket approach adopted by the government and the consequences on domestic and foreign investor confidence. Due to the racial undertones of the land issue, people have taken a dismissive approach choosing to say that the end justifies the means. The national psyche has now been changed to accept the legitimacy of property rights theft by the state to the extent that most of the victims have found no sympathy for their plight.
Having successfully made the case that property rights can be undermined with popular domestic and pan-African support, the RBZ under Gono came to the rescue in the onslaught against private property. Bilateral agreements under which the property rights of foreign investors were supposedly protected were thrown out of the window. The RBZ expanded its role into the mineral sector and, indeed all exporting sectors, choosing to nationalize all exports and treating all exporters as if they were agents of the central bank. Agreements were revisited and control of the mining sector rapidly moved to the RBZ.
My case has been in the media and at the core of the case is the role of the RBZ in expropriating my assets. When Gono was appointed in December 2003, his first act apart from targeting the asset management companies was to announce a Monetary Statement whose sole purpose was to place all the exporters under the control of the RBZ. All dispensations granted to the exporters were removed and in return a new animal was born i.e. Productive Sector Facilities under which exporters were rewarded with concessionary financing provided by commercial banks on condition that they would be penalized with an exchange rate that was arbitrarily determined. SMM was affected by this move, but in hindsight, it was part and parcel of a strategy to create a standing for the RBZ to intervene in the affairs of my companies with the ulterior motive of nationalization.
To complete the plot, allegations were made that I had externalised substantial funds from Zimbabwe and that I was a fugitive. At first, I did not believe that Gono was the man behind all this and I naively called him to arrange a meeting. He strangely agreed to meet me and the executives of SMM. We met at his office on March 1, 2004, and it was clear at the meeting that there was a conspiracy in the making involving Messrs. Manikai, Mkushi, Munyati, Gwaradzimba, and First Bank. Although other companies were accessing productive sector facilities to cover their requirements, a directive was issued by Gono to deny my companies any access to the funding. SMM managed to access some funds but that was not sufficient. What was more disturbing was that Gono instructed his officers not to grant any foreign currency to my companies as a way of crippling them.
However, the companies were resilient and he then dispatched a team to South Africa to investigate the allegations of externalisation. The team was led by the former Commissioner of the Zimbabwe Republic Police, Mr Mukurazhizha, whose understanding of business is questionable. It emerged that this was just a witch hunt to create a perception that there was a case. When the team did not get anything, Gono then ordered that I be extradited to Zimbabwe and this was promptly done. The Attorney General’s office was made to work at the weekend to manufacture a case against me. Hilary Munyati, a former CEO of SMM, was given a job at the RBZ and the onslaught was in earnest.
When the extradition project failed, this was followed by attempts to retroactively create a scenario where SMM would be considered to be a state indebted insolvent company for the sole purpose of establishing a legal basis to nationalize my assets. Under the decree promulgated by President Mugabe on the advice of Gono, all the SMM bank loans were classified as state loans even though SMM never borrowed any funds from the state. What is strange is that in the decree the state was never defined. I have attached herewith correspondence (click here) between SMM Holdings Limited (SMMH), the sole shareholder of SMM that confirms my submission about the illegal and unconstitutional actions that have now come to characterize Gono’s reign. The letter of 13 February 2006 that is attached was never responded to by the RBZ and through this initiative; I do hope that New Zimbabwe.com will obtain answers to the pertinent questions that will help expose the corruption that is taking place at the RBZ. I now understand why people would lose trust in government if the actions of the RBZ in the SMMgate are anything to go by.
My case is one of many and it is important that we interrogate the hypothesis that Gono is not a villain but just a practitioner who is concerned about the progress of Zimbabwe and in advancing a national interest. I do hope that people will have the patience to read the attached documents and make conclusions for themselves.
I never thought a day will arrive in Zimbabwe’s history where the RBZ would act in the manner highlighted in the attached correspondence. I know that Gono will try to make the case that the SMM matter was concocted above him and that the RBZ was just a facilitator in the expropriation of my assets but the evidence suggests otherwise. How can SMM’s loan from commercial banks be unilaterally converted into state obligations without any due process? Why would Gono issue instructions to the RBZ to disburse almost Z$1 trillion (using the old currency) without any board approval? To the extent that the RBZ’s funds belong to the people of Zimbabwe, how can it be justified that funds are disbursed of this magnitude on the instructions of one person without any feasibility or viability study?
Although the Reconstruction Act has been aptly described as Mawere Law, the law now exists in Zimbabwe allowing the government to superimpose itself in commercial transactions and arbitrarily become a creditor to your company for the sole purpose of nationalising your assets. In my case, ZESA, NSSA, RBZ, and MMCZ were used as instruments for nationalisation and yet the four institutions are body corporates in their own right. It is important that all the people who chose to ask Gono questions take due care that their assets may be fair game if you decide to ask difficult questions.
It would be wrong to preempt Gono’s show but I just thought that it was important in the interests of Zimbabwe that I devote my column to raise some of the key troubling questions that Gono would need to address in the conversation with the New Zimbabwe.com family.

Africa's cyberspace challenge

BOASTING of more nation states than the United States of America is a continent that has significantly contributed to global civilisation through its voluntary and involuntary exports of its human and natural resources but whose promise is yet to be fully exploited and realized.
The African family carries a global stigma that militates against the repositioning of its people in an increasingly competitive environment.
While Africa’s relatively untapped human and natural resources offer a lot of promise to future generations, there is a real risk that unless the global African family realises that a lasting heritage can only be defined through collective effort, the promise of Africa may be inherited by non-Africans.
With only six years into this century, many have dubbed it the African century and yet there is no visible effort by the African family to invest in a new address.
An address is an important variable in human existence because it is a device that allows human beings in a network of humanity to identify and communicate with each other. Unfortunately, the involuntary African human exports, i.e. slaves, were not allowed to create an address in their new homes that could provide a platform for other Africans to make a connection.
In as much as the Anglo Saxons who ventured into foreign lands and created enduring addresses that provided them with a platform to create new communities, albeit connected to their native lands, Africans who went into the diaspora were systematically prevented from using their new addresses to attract their fellow brothers and sisters to build stronger and vibrant communities with any connection to Africa.
It is not difficult to imagine what was in the minds of the European pioneers who ventured into Africa. When they discovered Africa’s promise, they immediately told their kith and kin that they had found a new address that could be potentially rewarding to them. Equally, for example other nationalities like Chinese, Jews, Arabs, Lebanese, Indians, Koreans, and Japanese etc who have chosen other countries as their new addresses have demonstrated a capacity to build successful communities with supporting institutions. In doing so, they have contributed in building their own native identity as a people and in helping to position their people in the global matrix of development.
The need for creating a new African network cannot be overstated. Africans in general have not invested in their own corporate and individual address that is necessary if they want to be taken seriously by other communities in the world. Some have chosen to simplistically explain Africa’s dilemma as being a creation of imperialists and yet fail to explain the success of Asians in Africa.
In fact, South Africa provides a unique example where indentured Indians were imported to provide cheap labour in the sugar plantations have over the years managed to create an address for themselves in the country resulting in their assimilation in the political culture of the country. The Indian family of South Africa has created business address and visible geographical communities that Africans in the diaspora have failed to create and yet spent most of their productive lives as arm chair critics against the political confusion that characterises Africa. Could it be that the failure by Africans in the diaspora to create their own addresses may explain why Africa continues to invest in the blame game without taking ownership of its challenges and solutions?
If Lebanese people, without the benefit of a colonial past, can successfully confuse the whole of West Africa by creating their own African addresses why is it that Africans continue to talk about Blair and Bush as if they are the only causes of their plight? If anyone visits a town like Durban, then one can appreciate the investment Asians have made in being African and yet they may never get the recognition they deserve. I do believe that anyone who builds a home in someone’s territory is in effect demonstrating confidence in that person. For how would it be possible for an Indian, for example, who has built a house in Africa to export the same house to India? It should be common cause that Africans who are in the majority in Africa stand to inherit that infrastructure. If anything, the investment by Indians should inspire natives to do better.
Rather, the natives of Africa have chosen to export their skills to other continents while at the same time not adding value to the creation of a new value system that recognises the individual in the context of an African family as the centre of transformation.
Our generation is fortunate to live at a time when existing technologies allow us to network more efficiently and effectively. However, even in the cyberspace Africans have failed to create sustainable virtual networks and invest in new IP addresses that can add content to the global debate on interplay between race and development. I have observed that most of the Africans I interface with in the virtual world have wrong email addresses i.e. their surnames go as follows: yahoo, hotmail, gmail, msn, etc. We are not ashamed that we have failed to create our own unique portals and Africa sensitive addresses. Some of us have invested in creating new email addresses that can only be accessed through African content. It is important that those of us fortunate to be computer literate and connected in the cyberspace use this privileged to create a new African presence. If myspace.com; YouTube can show that through networks people can create their own civilisations and improve the content of their conversations, why is it that we are not talking about this as Africans?
We need urgently to take advantage of the intersection of three revolutions that are taking place in the world. The first relates to the revolution in video production made possible by cheap camcorders and easy-to-use video software. African should invest in creating their own stories and exchanging them as an integral part of nation building or what can be described as “Africanation”. The African nation is extensive and yet fragmented and not only angry but destructively envious of progress. There is need to showcase African stories using the video medium so that these stories can begin to challenge our leaders who have a tendency to look east and west when they should be looking at themselves and learn from their own citizens. Surely, Asians had to confront themselves and map out a strategy for their salvation rather than investing in excuses.
The second revolution that pundits and analysts have dubbed Web 2.0 is exemplified by sites like MySpace, Wikipedia, Flickr and Digg where people create and share information together. Unfortunately, Africans have not created their own space where they can exchange their stories in a kind of mass collaboration that would not have been possible without the internet.
The third revolution is the cultural one where people are impatient with mainstream media and the top down approach in which governments and talking heads spoonfeed passive spectators ideas about what is happening in the world. People including Zimbabweans want unfiltered news and hence the growth of sites like, New Zimbabwe.com, as a source of untainted news.
On my part, I agreed to contribute to this new culture by my weekly column that I hope will add to the required conversations that can make Africa a continent of hope and promise. It is my sincere hope that Africans can invest in their own portal and tell the world their own stories in their own words. However, we must start by looking at our email addresses to ensure that we are compliant as Africans.
To this end, Africa Heritage Corporate Council (AHCC) has invested in a networking site, http://www.ahccouncil.com/, where any person interested in making a difference on the continent is welcome to join and get an e-mail address. The site is structured no different from MySpace.com to allow you to add your content. I have noted that many of the people who have registered on the site have chosen to remain anonymous and in some instances refused to provide their photographs. I find no excuse for people who choose to provide addresses without the necessary useful information to allow the users to use such information to not only make a difference to the lives of the authors but others.
Imagine, we created a site where our photos and profiles are available as well as the profile of Africa’s companies and brands, what difference can we make as Africans who appear increasingly challenged by the lack of case studies showcasing their successes and failures?
We should not begrudge anyone who regards African businesspersons are crooks and criminals, if we have chosen not to invest in understanding the lives and tribulations of Africa’s business people. We need to start learning how it is that foreigners who have chosen Africa as their new addresses have succeeded in both pre-colonial and post-colonial times to distinguish themselves and give an identity to their own people without spending a lot of energy winging about why things are not working. A new value system for Africans can only come about if Africans start by sharing selflessly their unique life experiences so that its people can draw inspiration where appropriate.
Finally, the ability of Africans to create their own vibrant virtual communities is not contingent on African governments. The few Africans who are privileged to communicate with the world have an obligation to use their time and resources to collectively create new images that can locate the African family in a continuum of human progress rather than in a residue of despair and hopelessness. I believe that we collectively owe it to our future generations to act creatively and use our collective presence in the virtual world to demonstrate something positive about us as Africans. It is important that we recognise that Perception is King.
The cyberspace is available and all we have to do is put our content in a portal that can help locate us where others have shown the lead.

Africa's brand challenge

PERCEPTION is King; and in the case of Africa, there is so little global knowledge about individual African countries to the extent that every country ends up sharing the same reputation of civil strife, corruption and poverty.
In as much as individual African countries and persons who share an African heritage may try to distance themselves from the generally perception of Africans, Africans cannot avoid being painted by the same brush.
As Africans continue to mourn about why they are perceived lowly in the global development chain, it is important that we recognize that Africans and its people wherever they may be have not invested in better communicating who they are to the global audience. Although some Africans have done exceptionally well as individuals, body corporates and nation states, they cannot avoid being contaminated by the African image disease.
The need for Africa and its global family to communicate, differentiate and symbolise itself to all the global audience of consumers and investors cannot be overstated. It is very important to underline that the audience is split into two major categories: African people and everyone else.
In the case of Africa, government leaders are more concerned about improving the image of the continent to foreigners than invest in image building targeted at citizens. Ultimately, the hope of Africa and its global family lies in investing in a new identity of a functioning Africa than a selective approach where islands of hope are created in the midst of an ocean of hopelessness and misery.
Every African nation has its own brand in as much as each individual and family has theirs. A nation's brand is defined by its people, by their temper, education, look, by their endeavors. Africa with one geographical mass and many tribes has its own identity and it is not easy to come up with a one size fits all perspective on branding. It is very hard to change African people’s values and attitude to life. This requires an investment in literacy, a change in the economic status of Africans, and a new way of life. This takes generations to change but can be fast tracked by the few Africans who realise that it is in their self interest to work towards the collective transformation of Africa and its global family.
Africans need to write their own story in the own words. We need to ask why it is the case that non-Africans have the last laugh in Africa and its own natives have to bear the brunt of bad governance and policies. Africa and its leaders are more than eager to export African jobs through policies that reward imports and welcome foreign capital in preference to domestic capital formation while maintaining an anti-imperialist hypocritical posture.
The improvement of the Africa brand lies not in the work of branding agencies, not even of governments but instead in every person who shares Africa’s heritage and we need to invest in making Africa and its global family’s values being better known, minimise the effect of several accidents caused by individuals that affect the brand. Africa has a fair share of bad leaders who intentionally and unintentionally have made the African story difficult to sell and as long as they cling to power for the wrong reasons the job is cut out for all of us. Africa’s development and the advancement of its people will continue to be arrested by the few who have taken it upon themselves to monopolize the political and economic space whose enlargement is a prerequisite for the establishment of a new African identity.
Historically, nation branding and invention of tradition has always happened by accident more than continuous economic planning. Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, China, India, Vietnam, Japan, New Zealand, Australia etc have created and represented much more consistent brand leadership than exhibited by most global companies. What is important is that some countries with the same colonial baggage as Africa took ownership of their own destinies and invested in new brand architectures that have resulted in the improvement of standing of their citizens in the global family of nations.
The Japanese have changed the global language by producing products that have now been accepted in the world as representing good quality and today the world speaks the Japanese language through the consumption of products produced in Japan. Equally countries like South Korea have demonstrated that a determined people can in one generation be accommodated in the global marketplace on its terms through the production of quality products and not through speeches that have now been the defining characteristic of African leaders at every opportunity they can get. To my knowledge South Korea still hosts American troops and yet did not use this as an excuse to invest in a uniquely Korean brand. If South Korea was an African country it is not difficult to imagine what its citizens would be subjected to in terms of propaganda.
Nation-branding as a discipline is the confluence of two seemingly disparate fields: marketing and diplomacy. In the 1960s, marketers became interested in what is called the ''country of origin'' effect. Why is it, they asked, that simply sticking a ''Made in Japan'' label on a stereo boosts its value by 30 percent? Clearly, they argued, there was something about Japan itself-perhaps its reputation as a technically savvy society-that made consumers value Japanese technology over similar products from, say, India. What are the roots of these national stereotypes, and how can marketing take advantage of them? And what if India wanted to develop its own high-tech export industry? How could it change those stereotypes?
In a world increasingly connected by 24/7 media, there has to be a ''brand'' strategy for Africans-the message has to be coordinated and consistent, and it has to respond to stereotypes already in circulation. Nation-branding, then, is what you get when you take traditional public diplomacy strategies and add marketing tools designed to change global perceptions.
True nation-branding is a complex and involved exercise that requires strategies to “harmonise” the brand message across African governments and communicating the message internally as well as externally. That means surveying citizens on the values they think should go into the ''Africa brand,'' as well as reiterating the importance of ''living'' that brand. The idea of defining and changing Africa's ''brand'' has to start with its citizens who stand to lose a lot if the message continues to be contaminated by bad apples which Africa continues to produce and nurture in their abundance. The way to address this issue is not through propaganda but through actions.
For Africans in general, it's very difficult to step back and listen particularly for the educated and affluent. I submit that this has to be the starting point. The first stage is for Africa’s people to first admit that Africa has a fundamental image problem whether caused by slavery, colonialism, imperialism, socialism, communism, etc that needs to be addressed.
One of the fundamental tenets of branding is consistency. We have only a certain number of chances to register in people's minds and unless each time we register, it appears to be making the same point; we don't have much of a chance. It's advice many African governments would do well to heed. After all, anti-imperialism and look East agenda is as much about rhetoric and symbols as it is about genuine development interest of Africa.
If Africans want to lead by example, then, Africa and its family has got to make sure that its message and actions are consistent. We have seen many authoritarians hijack the nation-building agendas of a number of African countries because inherently there are authoritarian undertones in nation-building strategies. Africa’s problem is not just with its brand-which could scarcely be stronger-but with its product. If you close your eyes, and think of Africa as a place to do business, what images spring to mind? Poor, corrupt and hopeless? Or a developing market with huge untapped potential? Too often, it's the former, which is one reason why the whole of Africa receives less than 3% of the world's total foreign direct investment annually.
South Africa where I am now a citizen has blazed the trail in Africa. In 1998, government and business came together to create a "Proudly South African" campaign. The logo can be licensed by companies for products whose content is at least 50% local, and who commit themselves to responsible labor and environmental practices. About 2,500 firms now use the logo, and are starting to enjoy the benefits. It's all part of a greater focus on Africa.
The continent's economy grew by about 5% last year, in large part thanks to improving prices for natural resources, including oil. Foreign direct investment in Africa, while still a trickle compared to the amounts flooding into China, is on the rise too. South Africa is the youngest African country with the biggest white population of a little more than 4 million. South Africa through its corporate citizens has now become one of the few African countries to join the global marketplace with products and services that have originality and reputation.
As we look at Africa’s 54 countries and try to locate companies that were originated by blacks and are led by blacks whose products and services have helped to reposition the African brand, we struggle to come up with any meaningful names. Yes, South Africa’s companies like Anglo American, South African Breweries, Old Mutual, Standard Bank, Investec Bank, Dimension Data, Bidvest, Sanlam, BAT, (the list is long), have now become not only pan-African players but world class players who share Africa’s heritage. But at the same time, the companies are driven by individuals who would ordinarily be classified as foreigners in Africa. In fact, many of Africa’s people and governments are cynical about the role of South African capital in Africa’s renaissance and yet they have done little to encourage domestic capital formation..........................................................I bumped into one Zimbabwean politician who had read my article entitled: “Is Mugabe Corrupt?” and he expressed his views about Mugabe and felt that I should not even have asked the question because in his mind there is no doubt that Mugabe is guilty of corruption. He was adamant that Mugabe cannot and should not be absolved of the decay in Zimbabwe and he should be personally identified as culpable and liable for the mess.
As an individual who has also been identified by the state appointed administrator, Afaras Gwaradzimba, as culpable and liable for my own company’s affairs, I can now understand why my views in the article may have been a source of misunderstanding. I had not thought through the implications of Gwaradzimba’s appointment by the government of Zimbabwe to steal my companies under the guise of reconstruction. It was only after the intervention of this politician who maintained that if I can be held culpable and liable for the alleged financial state of affairs of my company by the government, led by President Mugabe, then surely President Mugabe should be held culpable and liable for impoverishing Zimbabwe.
He argued that it is imperative that Zimbabwe urgently finds an administrator to take over the affairs of the country and investigate Mugabe in as much as Gwaradzimba has been appointed to do. Incidentally, I was shocked to learn that this politician had actually read the Reconstruction of State-indebted Insolvent Companies Act 2004 that is now the law of the land in Zimbabwe that allows the government to expropriate private assets without following any due process of the law.
The law applies retroactively and what is significant is that the state does not exist at law begging the question of how a person can be indebted to a ghost. Under this law, any person identified by a partial administrator as culpable and liable will have his assets forfeited to the state without any compensation. I was encouraged that the intervention of the Friends of Zimbabwe Coalition on the property rights question has helped to open the eyes of many Zimbabweans including politicians who had a naïve understanding of the ramifications of this draconian piece of legislation.
This politician observed that if Mugabe’s government can steal companies in broad daylight how can I dare say that he is not corrupt? I responded saying that all I wanted to do was to generate debate on Mugabe’s legacy and have come to accept that the expropriation of property rights of blacks will also be part of the legacy. What was more fundamental in the observation of this politician was that if the government of Zimbabwe can steal assets and citizens’ human rights, why should anyone trust such a government to hold an election where it will lose?
I was encouraged to learn that many people are indeed reading my articles and to the extent that they are helping expand the knowledge base, I am satisfied that my intervention is directing Zimbabweans and Africans in general to think hard about what kind of future they deserve and how they should be governed.
In pursuit of this, there can be no justification of anyone prescribing what is non-negotiable. For what is sovereignty worth when a government can operate outside its own laws and how can the challenge of building a new Africa be addressed when those in power are working constructively to undermine it?
Without the rule of law and not rule by law, there can never be a new Africa. Africa can rise to the challenge when its citizens get the respect from those they have chosen or those that have chosen themselves to lead Africa understand the true meaning of common citizenship and the need to create and nurture a new African identity premised on the respect of human and property rights.
In pursuit of the goal to help create a new Africa found on new values, I am a member of the Africa Heritage Corporate Council (AHCC) and from now onwards you can reach me on my new email address: mmawere@ahccouncil.com. I realise that this mission can only be considered as work in progress requiring the intellectual and physical resources of all persons concerned and interested about Africa’s destiny.
I know we can create our own identity through enterprise and as Africans we can made the difference that we enhance our collective profile in a competitive global environment. Let us invest in challenging the consensus that Africa should be a conveyer belt for what God has endowed it with in form of minerals and natural resources to feed the world without its citizens taking ownership of their resources.
The governments of Africa have consistently underestimated the potential of citizens in preference for the promise of investment that is solely aimed at exploiting the resources of Africa. While we are being encouraged to look East, let us begin to look at ourselves.
As I have said before, the only power people who have no power is the power to organize.

Is Africa Cursed?

IN AN increasingly globalised architecture, post-colonial Africa remains at the bottom of the development ladder with its leaders groping for an ideological and developmental paradigm that can address the poverty trap and economic decay that confronts the continent.
Many have argued that Africa is cursed continent without explaining why God would be confused to endow the same geographical mass with a rich geology and resources that continue to attract the attention of both the West and East in equal measure.
It has also been argued that Africa’s problems lie in its people who are a cursed race whether they are domiciled in the continent or in the diaspora. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that the IQ of Africans is inferior to other racial groups. In locating Africans in the intellectual ladder, some have said that we rank as a collective at the bottom.
In attempting to explain the African economic and political quagmire, many have focused on Africa’s political leadership and its perceived lack of vision and the generally corrupt environment that is often rightly or wrongly associated with Africa’s elite. It is argued that Africa would be better off if its 53 leaders were to stand down in one day and yet it is not explained how the continent would be any different if its people’s eyes are not on the real developmental price. Having worked for a multilateral development institution, I am acutely conscious of the challenges that Africa and its people face in convincing the world to take us seriously as economic players. Africans are generally alienated from their resources and have not exhibited an ability to work together to resolve their problems.
The problem starts with the African address. Do Africans have an address? Who is an African? What defines an African? There is no consensus on the definition of an African. Are whites and Asians who have lived in Africa for generations Africans? Equally, are Africans who are in the diaspora whether voluntarily or involuntarily (as slaves) Africans? If we look at Africa’s infrastructural and institutional development, we find that countries in which the settler communities were in large numbers are generally more developed than those that were sparsely inhabited by colonialists. Equally, the post colonial era has not produced any significant transformation.
Notwithstanding the fact that a significant investment has been made in educating Africans, it is common cause that many of the educated Africans have chosen a western address as a theatre to apply their skills. In contrast, the European settler community that chose Africa as a home came with a purpose and they invested in an African address. Although in numbers they were much fewer than black Africans, they managed to maintain hegemony over the majority through a combination of an unjust political and economic order. What is inescapable is that they used their collective wisdom to build an infrastructure and institutions that were supportive of their civilization. They built European clubs and through such associations they invested in a networking framework that has endured even after they lost political power. What is clear is that we have not been able to support the post colonial environment with African institutions and also we have not been able to invest in our corporate civilization choosing to invest in political solutions only.
On the corporate front, black Africans are the majority in numbers and yet they have failed to convert their numbers into an economic force. If we look at Africa’s mining sector, we find little or no evidence of serious African players in the sector. Africa’s banking institutions are dominated by non-Africans and yet the consumers of banking services remain black in the majority. Those that have been privileged to get a good education, end up being arm chair revolutionaries blaming the whole white world and corrupt African leaders for the continent’s failure to deliver value to its citizens. We have not seen any serious attempt at building pan-African institutions by the black private sector in Africa. It is important to underscore that the colonial state did not create an environment that was tolerant of black capitalism and, therefore, some of us who now claim to be business people are conscious that without decolonization we would not have the privilege to talk about property rights. A new address was created for us to begin to talk about the kind of issues that transform societies.
However, it is also important to state that the role of black capital in Africa’s development is a contested issue and many of Africa’s leading intellectuals have failed to provide any leadership in terms of defining the role, if any, of black private capital in Africa’s development. We continue to hear that it is only the politicians who have failed Africa because they have no interest of the continent at heart and yet the same politicians are created by the public in many cases and in others they shoot themselves in state houses.
After almost 40 years of uhuru, Africa has not been able to establish a corporate address for its people. What is tragic is that unless an address is created that can act as a reference for existing and future generations, the ability of Africa to take ownership of its destiny will remain compromised. I have received many encouraging messages from the many who have read my articles. Equally I have been humbled by many who continue to ask me for help to finance their education and assist with their business endeavors. The same people are blind to the fact that on 7 September 2004, the government of Zimbabwe manufactured a law to nationalize my businesses and then proceeded to systematically disable me for ever challenging these draconian and illegal measures.
I have learnt to accept that people generally are not interested in other people’s problems but have an interest in ensuring that their interests are advanced. I took the decision in 1995, to incorporate a company, Africa Resources Limited (ARL), prior to moving to South Africa in response to what I saw as a gap in the relationship between African people and their resources. At the time, I had an option to set up a consortium but I decided that it was important to own the company 100% not because I wanted to monopolize the returns but because I saw Africa’s greatest challenge as that of institution building. Many business owners end up the loneliest people least understood by those close to them and yet selfless because the more they take from the business the less the business can grow.
Owners of businesses like Africans are at the bottom of the earning ladder as they are only entitled to dividends. Most of Africa’s best brains reside in intellectuals and professionals who would not want to be in the basement of the company in terms of earnings. They often prefer to get secure contracts while at the same time wanting to be owners. It is a challenge to get a crop of Africans who can discipline themselves and sacrifice their personal interests in building sustainable institutions. In my case, I chose not to declare dividends for the ten year period that I had interests in Zimbabwe before the invasion. How many of us would behave in a similar manner. The challenge I encountered among African professionals is that their primary preoccupation was on maximizing their personal wealth. There is nothing wrong in this but something has to give. For enterprise creation, Africa needs a new mindset and leadership.
In a sense, I am privileged to have been one of the few targeted by the Zimbabwean government. It is historic that a decree had to be promulgated to deal with my issue and the Zimbabwean parliament passed a law to allow the government to expropriate private assets without any regard to the constitution. This is a precedent that should be used as one of the case studies that Africans interested in business can use. My case is pregnant with many issues that should be of interest to any African interested in doing business in Africa. The African curse is in that we have refused to draw lessons from other people’s miseries in the belief that the same will not visit us. Through my case and those of others in Africa, we now know what we took for granted only yesterday i.e. the importance of the rule of law and the respect for property rights.
I have accepted with humility that some people look up to me for business guidance and it would be an abuse if I chose to retail my experiences i.e. deal with each individual at a time. I have chosen to wholesale my insights through my writings so that I can escape answering all the issues raised by the people who have generously responded to my articles. To this end, I helped found an organization, Africa Heritage Corporate Council (AHCC), whose URL address is: http://www.ahccouncil.com/. This is my new African address and I have decided to change my contact email to: mailto:mmawere@ahccouncil.comin the hope that all who are interested in better understanding the business challenges that Africa confronts can join us in creating a new address for transformation in Africa.
As living human beings, we are all actors and all we live on earth are stories of what we did. Africa needs a new identity that we can only help create in so far as business is concerned. Our appreciation of business and corporate civilization needs to be improved. We all have a collective responsibility to invest in this quest for a new identity. Yes most of us who choose to be in business are classified as crooks or cronies and never as principals in our own right. We need to build our own Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Rupert Murdochs, Samsungs, Tata, Mittals, etc. It is never too late for Africa to wake up.
Finally, imagine one day people who share Africa’s heritage decided to buy airtime from one source. How big would our corporation be? How many of us use the phone as a medium of communication? If we could use our spent in a constructive manner, we could set up Africa Heritage Mobile (AHM) for instance and use this collective vehicle to buy bulk airtime from networks in individual countries. Through volume discounts we can create a new mobile bank. This can be done and should be done. We should not accept the proposition that we are cursed and yet we are blessed to be alive in these interesting times when our leaders are selling our mineral heritage to the East in the sincere belief that we are not capable of organizing ourselves. It is important that we show our leaders that we can organize and invest in a better Africa.
For those that believe in change during our time, I encourage you to join the AHCC and become part of this new family of Africans. It is important that you choose AHCC as your new address instead of using hotmail, yahoo, msn and others without applying your mind on whose address it is. We are allocating new email addresses for members and all you need to do is to inform us of your interest in the service. You also need to create your own online profile.
We have also created a window that allows you to tell us about your company. For professionals out there, it is important that we create institutions out of our new address. There is nothing to stop you creating Africa Heritage Law Society or Forum, Africa Heritage IT Forum, etc. We can create an Africa Heritage Corporate Council Volunteer Corps where we all can donate 20 hours per year to make a difference in Africa. We can also create geographically specific associations like the London Chapter of AHCC. We need to be creative like the founding fathers of America who came from different countries and yet chose America as their new address. Look what they created. Remember: “The only power people who do not have power is the power to organize”.
I attach herewith an email I got from a friend with a piece entitled: “Global Economic De-Mystified”.
1. SOCIALISM: You have 2 cows and you give one to your neighbour.
2. COMMUNISM: You have 2 cows, the Government takes both and gives you some milk.
3. FASCISM: You have 2 cows; the Government takes both and sells you some milk.
4. NAZISM: You have 2 cows. The Government takes both and shoots you.
5. BUREAUCRATISM: You have 2 cows; the Government takes both, shoots one, milks the other and throws the milk away...
6. TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income.
7. AN AMERICAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows. Later, you hire a consultant to analyze why the cow dropped dead.
8. A FRENCH CORPORATION: You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows.
9. A JAPANESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk. You then create a clever cow cartoon image called Cowkimon and market them World-Wide.
10. A GERMAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You reengineer them so they live for 100 years, eat once a month, and milk themselves.
11. AN ITALIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows, but you don't know where they are. You break for lunch.
12. A RUSSIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You count them and learn you have five cows. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. You count them again and learn you have 2 cows. You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.
13. A SWISS CORPORATION: You have 5000 cows, none of which belong to you. You charge others for storing them.
14. A CHINESE CORPORATION: You have two cows. You have 300 people milking them. You claim full employment, high bovine productivity, and arrest the newsman who reported the numbers.
15. AN INDIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You worship them.
16. A BRITISH CORPORATION: You have two cows. Both are mad.
18. A ZAMBIAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You call in investors to look after them for you and wonder why they are not sharing the milk with you
17. A ZIMBABWEAN CORPORATION: You have two cows. You eat both.

Mugabe, corruption and the Chiyangwa deal

ON A controversial visit to Malawi to open a road named after him, President Robert Mugabe, said: “Do you really know who I am?”
That prompts the question, who is Robert Mugabe?
Mugabe has been a towering figure in the history of Zimbabwe. Historians, academics, state and non-state practitioners alike will not deny Mugabe a special space in the history of Zimbabwe and indeed in the global space of men and women whose lives have had an indelible impact on human development.
He has been Zimbabwe’s only leader and after twenty six years in power his legacy remains controversial. How will history judge him? Would his colleagues stand by his record when he expires or would they be chameleons who would wish the world to believe that only Mugabe should be culpable and held liable for the economic and political decay of contemporary Zimbabwe?
Mugabe remains an enigma and even his foes appear not to understand him. Mugabe is one of the key founding fathers of Zimbabwe and his role in shaping the history of the country cannot be denied. Like Truman, the buck stops at Mugabe and accordingly it is important to critically examine his record particularly in so far as the world at large and the public in Zimbabwe has accepted gullibly that he is corrupt without providing any substantive evidence on the role of Mugabe personally in corrupt practices.
What is corruption and how does it impact of governance? In broad terms, political corruption is the misuse of public office for private gain. Political corruption encompasses abuses by government officials such as embezzlement and nepotism, as well as abuses linking public and private actors such as bribery, extortion, influence peddling, and fraud.
All forms of government are susceptible in practice to political corruption. Degrees of corruption vary greatly, from minor uses of influence and patronage to do and return favours, to institutionalised bribery and beyond. The end-point of political corruption is kleptocracy, literally rule by thieves, where even the external pretence of honesty is abandoned. Corruption is has a direct and causal relationship with centralization of power and despotism.
While the despot himself may not be directly involved in corrupt activities, it is common cause that by creating a mono power centre he cultivates and nurtures a generally corrupt environment. It is for the public to judge whether Zimbabwe exhibits evidence of corruption and to what extent the President can be identified as culpable and held liable for this cancer to the Zimbabwean society.
Corruption arises in both political and bureaucratic offices and can be petty or grand, organized or unorganized. For the purposes of understanding the problem and devising remedies, it is important to keep crime and corruption analytically distinct. Corruption does pose a serious development challenge. In the political realm, it undermines democracy and good governance by subverting formal processes. Corruption in elections and in legislative bodies reduces accountability and representation in policymaking; corruption in the judiciary suspends the rule of law; and corruption in public administration results in the unequal provision of services.
More generally, corruption erodes the institutional capacity of government as procedures are disregarded, resources are siphoned off, and officials are hired or promoted without regard to performance. At the same time, corruption undermines the legitimacy of government and such democratic values as trust and tolerance. Corruption also undermines economic development by generating considerable distortions and inefficiency.
In the private sector, corruption increases the cost of business through the price of illicit payments themselves, the management cost of negotiating with officials, and the risk of breached agreements or detection. Although some claim corruption reduces costs by cutting red tape, an emerging consensus holds that the availability of bribes induces officials to contrive new rules and delays. Where corruption inflates the cost of business, it also distorts the playing field, shielding firms with connections from competition and thereby sustaining inefficient firms.
Corruption also generates economic distortions in the public sector by diverting public investment into capital projects where bribes and kickbacks are more plentiful. Officials may increase the technical complexity of public sector projects to conceal such dealings, thus further distorting investment.
Corruption also lowers compliance with construction, environmental, or other regulations; reduces the quality of government services and infrastructure; and increases budgetary pressures on government.
olitical corruption is widespread in many countries, and represents a major obstacle to the well-being of the citizens of those countries. It is important to underscore that while the media and developed countries have traditionally seen national governance and corruption as particularly daunting in poorer countries with rich countries generally viewed as exemplary, the reality is more complex. Even rich countries are corrupt and yet emphasis on narrow legalisms often subtly obscures manifestations of mis-governance that afflict rich countries as well. It is generally true that emphasis is usually given to measurement and analysis of mis-governance when the rules of the game have been captured and privatized by the elite through undue influence.
In the case of Zimbabwe, it is important that we study the situation to ascertain whether the rules of the game have not been hijacked by a small cabal led by the actors in the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe while Mugabe remains like a naked emperor bearing the brunt of public anger against institutionalized corruption and the its impact on governance.
The jury is still out on whether Mugabe has misused public office for any direct and private gain. Having operated in Zimbabwe as a private businessman, I can confirm that I have no personal knowledge of Mugabe ever asking for a bride in return for any favour. Equally, I have not come across anyone with personal knowledge of Mugabe having asked for a personal favour in the conduct of his duties. Is Mugabe dishonest? While all forms of government are susceptible in practice to political corruption, is it necessary true that Mugabe is corrupt? If so, how does the corruption manifest itself?
Corruption takes two to tango and yet no briber has come to the fore to provide evidence that Mugabe takes bribes. Notwithstanding the lack of evidence, the opposition players in Zimbabwe like their international collaborators remain convinced that Mugabe is personally corrupt in a bid to explain why he still clings to power against a background of a debilitating economic crisis that has reduced Zimbabwe from a bread basket to a basket case.
The question is framed as follows: “If Mugabe is indeed not corrupt why is he still in power?”
Some ignore the fact that Mugabe believes in elections and since 1980 elections have been held on time and consistently Zanu PF has won and it is not the obligation of the winner to help the loser. If Mugabe has not missed any election and yet carries the burden of explaining why he has not lost an election then there is need for a serious rethink about the construction of the change agenda in Zimbabwe. Some argue rightly or wrongly that Mugabe has manipulated the constitution to suit his whims and yet fails to provide concrete and cogent evidence of how an incumbent can fail to use the state machinery at his/her disposal to win an election consistently. Even if the constitution of Zimbabwe was amended today, it is not explained how a poorly organized and funded opposition can unseat an incumbent political monster.
In evaluating whether Mugabe is corrupt, should we not go beyond the personal assessment to a more a general and institutional assessment of Zanu PF as an organization that has monopolized state power for more than a quarter of a century with one person at the helm. If Mugabe has defined who Zanu PF is as an institution is it not fair to interrogate the hypothesis that if the government is corrupt then the leader should be the cause. Is it fair to hold Mugabe personally culpable when there is no evidence of personal gain other than the gain he has derived by continuing to hold on to political power?
Some have argued that it is important to locate Zimbabwe’s problems in the ideology that informs Mugabe rather than simplistically concluding that he is personally corrupt. However, if Mugabe is the head of the fish then he cannot and should not escape being held culpable some would argue.
Why is it the case that Zimbabweans have failed to understand Mugabe even after his long stay in the people’s house i.e. State House? Do we really know the man? The many people who I have met including respectable journalists appear not to understand the man. Equally, I am not sure whether Zanu PF even understands its leader. Could it be that people are so petrified of Mugabe that they have chosen deliberately not to understand the man?
It is important to underscore that Mugabe is allergic to the private sector and yet some of us stand accused of being cronies when it is common cause that the party and its president despises the private sector. In generational terms, why is it the case that all the best brains that were privileged to be relevant at the time of Zimbabwe’s independence never graduated to be successful businesspersons and it is only our generation that has succeeded to define a new business architecture for the country? In such an environment it is not unusual for the public to explain any business success in patronage and corrupt terms. In this kind of free for all it is natural that Zanu PF is credited for our success and yet the public fail to identify the counterpart in government who is supposed to have subverted government processes for personal gain.
Last week was an interesting one for Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono and businessman, Phillip Chiyangwa. The public had come to accept that Mugabe had anointed Gono as his successor and Gono could do no wrong and evil. However, for the first time Mugabe has shown who really is Gono’s boss! It is not the board of governors of the RBZ that forced Gono to make the humiliating U-turn on the bizarre but expected deal allowing Chiyangwa's company, Pinnacle Property Holdings, to sell properties in foreign currency. It was Mugabe.
The special relationship between Chiyangwa and Gono is common cause but the relationship between Mugabe and Chiyangwa has not be adequately discussed and addressed. There is an impression that Mugabe is close to Chiyangwa but this is not the case. What was significant about the Pinnacle debacle is that Gono had approved the deal and it is ludicrous to suggest that Paul Sigauke could personally approve a transaction where the RBZ, on an exclusive basis, would appoint Chiyangwa’s company to sell residential stands to non-resident Zimbabweans for foreign currency without the personal knowledge of the Governor.
If Chiyangwa did not enjoy a special relationship with Gono he would have been processed by the Zimbabwe Republic Police rather than Gono sacrificing the innocent Sigauke to placate the angry Mugabe. Strangely enough, the public is told by Gono that if it was not for the media exposure, the Chiyangwa deal could have proceeded.
If one reads between the lines, it is obvious that the President read about the Chiyangwa deal in the media and he must have summoned Gono to explain whereupon in typical Gono-style he blamed everyone except himself and promised to investigate and bring to book the culpable. If the President was personally corrupt and knowing the implications of the Pinnacle deal on Chiyangwa personally and his government backers, would he have ordered Gono to reverse the transaction?
What is significant about the deal is that while other Zimbabweans have been targeted for dealing in foreign exchange given that the President believes that foreign currency is a national asset, Chiyangwa was given the permission to sell Zimbabwean assets to non-residents in foreign currency when even mining companies are denied the same privilege. What is so special about Chiyangwa that would allow the RBZ to respond in a day with an approval? What other deals are being approved by the RBZ that the President is not told about because the media is manipulated by Gono? Why is it that the opposition is blind to these deals and the media has become the only source of information Mugabe can listen to and respond swiftly?
If anything, last week demonstrated something remarkable that Mugabe would not countenance any corruption and if the opposition demonstrations were targeted at corruption they would enjoy Mugabe’s unequivocal support.
It is critically important to underscore that Mugabe and not Gono is still in charge and that the corruption that has now been a characteristic of Gono’s reign has survived and thrived because Zimbabweans have not found a way of communicating with Mugabe.
Those who know Mugabe very well would agree that he is one man who thinks that an abuse of government office for personal gain is a betrayal of the revolution. Why is it the case that Gono has escaped Mugabe’s wrath? If Chiyangwa had the confidence of pursuing the Pinnacle project fully knowing Mugabe’s views on citizens’ rights to the scare commodity, it is important to question what other deals has he done with the RBZ that have gone unnoticed? Is Chiyangwa alone in getting these special deals? What is the connection between Chiyangwa, Gono, Prof. Jonathan Moyo etc and the Tsholotsho gang? What other deals are taking place in the name of national interests while private gain is the operative word?
As I have said before, the only power the people who do not have power is the power to organize. Is it not ironic that those who are opposed to Mugabe have not taken the time to study the man? I am sure many would have read the Chiyangwa story and not taken time to study the implications on governance and Mugabe’s views on corruption and Gono’s chameleon style of governance. This case alone is pregnant with lessons on governance.
Coming back to Mugabe, it is important that we study carefully what Gono is reported to have said to the media after canceling the Pinnable licence following Mugabe’s intervention.
Gono said: "It is illegal for any institution in Zimbabwe, other than Homelink, to enter into foreign currency deals for the purposes of purchasing or renting property.”
It is important that we get told when precisely Gono knew about the deal. If he did not know about Sigauke’s unauthorized approval, how many other deals are taking place in the RBZ without his knowledge? Where should the buck stop at? Why is it that Gono would not accept responsibility for the obvious governance problem at the RBZ?
"The central bank has nothing against Pinnacle Property Holdings and encourages them and other property developers to try by all means to satisfy local demand for housing before attempting to satisfy external demand," said Gono.
In this statement Gono exposed himself. If the RBZ has nothing against Pinnacle why should he encourage it to pursue property development by any means necessary? Have you heard Gono encouraging exporters to use any means necessary to remain in business? What is so special about Pinnacle and other property developers? Could it be that Gono has an interest in Pinnacle?
"My gratitude goes to the Press for highlighting this issue, which could have gone undetected, were it not for the media," he added.
Why should Gono be grateful to the media? What the hell is happening at the RBZ that all systems and procedures for approving deals are non-existent and we have now to rely on the media to help the Bank? Gono is strangely now a Professor on Good Corporate Governance and yet his own organization needs the media to highlight corrupt deals?
The Herald reported that when contacted, Chiyangwa professed ignorance of the latest developments. He is reported to have said: "I think these are just rumours, no communication has come to me to that effect. Maybe it’s just talk because not everyone is happy with this. If it were true, I would have received a letter from Mr Sigauke. It’s something that has taken long to materialise so it cannot be cancelled just like that."
Chiyangwa was right to express surprise at the turn of events because knowing his special relationship with Gono it was inconceivable that the deal could be reversed without a word from Gono.
The Herald reported that Sigauke had accepted full responsibility for the decision to grant Pinnacle the authority to sell its properties in foreign currency. He is reported to have said: "I behave like a Japanese karateka and I will kill myself for honour. Any mistake made in my division is my mistake as the head of that division. It is a hard decision to take, but I feel I should move on. It is my personal belief that I should persuade the bank to give me a package."
Does Gono think that the public in naïve to accept that Sigauke was the driver of the deal? Why should he take the flak? Should the buck not stop at Gono? Was it a mistake on the part of Sigauke? What other mistakes are taking place at the RBZ? Why should he be given the luxury of persuading the Bank to give him a package when other Zimbabweans are arrested for making the same mistakes?
The Herald then reported that the documents showed that Homelink Private Limited, which had originally been approached by Chiyangwa to enter into a joint venture, turned down the offer last month. The rejection letter from Homelink said: "Under the circumstances having considered corporate governance issues, financial issues and potential benefits to all interested parties, it is the unanimous decision of the Homelink Board that Homelink does not proceed with the joint venture proposed by Native Investments. The board, however, is concerned about a mechanism being established that is exclusive to one particular player/organisation. There are inherent risks with this approach and the board would not like Homelink to be compromised in any way, particularly as this could have a serious knock-on effect to the central bank."
Notwithstanding the position of Homelink, that neither Homelink nor the central bank should in any way be associated with the project, we are told that we should accept Gono’s version that Sigauke was a loose canon who on his return from Brazil received a letter from Chiyangwa urging him to reconsider the Pinnacle application.
It is reported that Chiyangwa’s letter said: "I refer to the above matter. It has been brought to my attention that the Homelink (Private) Limited Board of Directors have declined to proceed with the joint venture with Pinnacle Properties. With the greatest of respect, this is regrettable. In light of the foregoing, we kindly request that you grant us the permission to commence selling our properties in foreign currency."
The next day, Chiyangwa wrote again to Sigauke and submitted a list of properties under Pinnacle. We are not told why Chiyangwa would submit a list of properties without even receiving a response from Sigauke. How did Chiyangwa know that the RBZ wanted a list of properties from him?
We are then told that on the same day, Sigauke "inappropriately and without authority" signed the approval after having advised Chiyangwa that: "Exchange control would wish to advise that the Reserve Bank has approved Pinnacle Property Holdings’ proposal to sell property in foreign currency . . ."
The authority was valid until April 30 2007.
Some may remember that I was one of the pioneers in encouraging non-resident Zimbabweans to invest in the country. At the time, Chiyangwa was very critical of the initiative leading him to name his company, Native Africa Investments, in a bid to highlight the fact that he stood for authentic Zimbabweans and not the sell out Zimbos in the diaspora. He did not see any need in attracting Zimbabweans in the diaspora to invest in Zimbabwe and yet today my idea was nationalized by Gono through the setting up of Homelink and now Chiyangwa has come up with a scheme that he opposed barely ten years ago. It is important that as people concerned about Zimbabwe seek to chart a post-Mugabe era they do so, on the basis of integrity and honesty and not on hypocrisy and duplicity.
Chiyangwa took advantage of my predicament and is now involved in a joint venture with companies whose control was stolen from me by the government of Zimbabwe and in particular Gono. Through his investment vehicle, Phillip Chiyangwa Family Trust, he holds a 20 percent stake in Maitlands Zimbabwe, a joint venture company with CFI (45 percent) and ZimRe (35 percent). I started the project and put together the strategic framework to create an institution that would develop housing solutions for the country while promoting and developing a holistic institutional capacity to respond the challenges facing Zimbabweans.
Through my control of both CFI and Zimre, we put together a framework that has now been hijacked. It is not surprising that Gono has a representative now on the CFI board, Mr. Chiremba, and is effectively in control of both Zimre and CFI. While Emmerson Mnangagwa may have been rightly or wrongly credited for my predicament, he is not alone and the real beneficiaries are obvious.
I strongly believe that Zimbabweans must wake up and smell the coffee. Change may be near but if after twenty six years in power, Mugabe’s real personality remains a mystery, people need to go back to the drawing board lest he may be replaced by chameleons who may legitimately claim that Mugabe alone should be held culpable for corruption while taking advantage of citizens’ ignorance. I trust that people will take time to understand Mugabe the persons without favour or prejudice so that solutions for the country can be appropriately developed in the national interest and those that are culpable are brought to book.
Mugabe’s own naivety presents an opportunity for people like Gono to take advantage of the vacuum while seemingly maintaining a high moral ground by using the state machinery to benefit his friends while targeting his enemies using Mugabe.
I am told that Gono moves around with a file for all his enemies while maintaining amnesia on all the deals done by his friends and cronies. This can only stop if like the Herald did, people focus on where the problem is and stop targeting a grandfather of Zimbabwean politics who may be more of a victim than a villain.