By A Correspondent- Former Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor, Gideon Gono was Saturday forced to defend his controversial Farm Mechanisation Programme, insisting the dishing out of millions of public funds to senior Zanu-PF and government officials was above board.
Senior government and Zanu-PF officials including President Emmerson Mnangagwa accessed millions in United States dollars from the RBZ between 2007 and 2008 through the programme.
None of the beneficiaries repaid the loans.
However, according to the now reclusive Gono who was forced to come out and defend the scheme, the beneficiaries were not expected to repay the loans.
On Saturday, UK-based lawyer and academic, Alex Magaisa penned a damning article in which he traced how well-connected senior government and Zanu-PF officials looted millions of dollars in foreign currency under Gono’s murky Farm Mechanisation Programme.
However, in response to the article on Saturday night, a fuming Gono attacked Magaisa for allegedly making “inaccurate, unfair and unfounded” allegations against the beneficiaries.
“My statement comes in the wake of Dr Magaisa’s allegations, which makes a lot of unfounded allegations and inaccurate, and unfair conclusions that border on defamation,” said Gono adding the programme was undertaken in accordance with the law.
The former RBZ governor, scorned for presiding over the apex bank when Zimbabwe was going through its worst economic turmoil in decades, said he introduced the programme to capacitate newly-resettled farmers through mechanisation.
Zimbabwe embarked on a controversial land reform programme in 2000. The programme saw thousands of white farmers being kicked out of productive farms to be replaced by black Zimbabweans.
“I come as the man who was in charge of the RBZ during the most trying period in our history and as a man who was at the centre of trying to keep the economy going.
“I can state categorically that Dr Magaisa is offside and that no beneficiary of the farm mechanisation programme ever refused to pay for the equipment that they got and neither were they asked to pay,” Gono said.
He was at pains to explain after Zimbabweans took to social media Saturday to express disgust at how politically connected individuals could feast on the carcass of a dead economy with gay abandon.