Former Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono has said that he had to print money even when he knew it would cause hyperinflation because the government was desperate to prevent a coup by hungry soldiers.

Gono is quoted by The Standard saying soldiers were willing to stage a coup to get food. Said Gono, “if we had not done what we did printing money and allowing inflation to skyrocket, then the men and women you see in those beautiful uniforms, they were ready to get out of their barracks.

“Operation Restore Legacy would have happened much earlier, but not one that we would have been commanding ourselves. It would have been a ‘restore legacy’ that would have been commanded from elsewhere.”