THE whole hullabaloo about illicit gold is plain codswallop and balderdash.
The country‘s detractors coalesced around George Soros and his Open Society Institute of Southern Africa are clearly miffed and terribly disappointed that Zimbabwe has reverted to and resurrected gold as the reference anchor of the United States dollar.
For years, hyperinflation has been the bane and bugbear of the besieged Zimbabwe economy. The Anglo-Saxon world and its European kith and kin launched a concerted economic attack. The goal being to force Zimbabwe to its heel so it could cry “Uncle”. The fiat US dollar as the infant global currency of new baby America was deployed to mercilessly decimate the Zimdollar fiat money inherited from colonial Rhodesia. The desperate currency scenario called for creative innovation.
The advent of President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his second republic brought about new and fresh thinking. The magic wand of effective riposte was exhumed from our eight centuries-old great civilisation. The uniquely outstanding great civilisation of sub-Saharan Africa had its enduring economy anchored in gold, the venerable global currency that has defied the passage of time while appealing to universal humanity regardless of the geographical location of humanity.
Indeed, some scholars attribute the naming of the collective Shona people from the Hindi word SONA meaning “gold”. This may not be far-fetched as every littoral society of the adjacent Indian Ocean carried out thriving trade with the Great Zimbabwe civilisation.
Zimbabwe’s gold fields are the stuff of historical legends wafted by Egyptians, Hebrews, Arabs, Persians, Somalis, Indians, Malays and even far away Chinese. Imperial Europe of Portugal, England, Germany and even localised Africaners all jousted for Zimbabwe’s gold.
It was the imperial arch-plunderer Cecil John Rhodes who finally wrested this coveted plateau of immense gold riches. His private and buccaneering Pioneer Column raised its flag at Fort Salisbury in 1890, thus opening the modern chapter of the Zimbabwe nation.
Back to national currency woes.
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It dawned upon President Mnangagwa that it was an embarrassing scandal that Zimbabwe was manacled to a foreign fiat currency. Quite apart from earning other hard currencies through global commerce, Zimbabwe actually mined gold, the venerable gold currency in copious quantities.
This was the eureka moment.
In the last five years of the second republic, President Mnangagwa has meticulously nurtured and expanded gold production.
As fate may be, a lot of the marginal growth is owed to the small-to-medium enterprise (SME) gold sector. It now contributes more than two-thirds of the national gold haul of 35 tonnes. Most pleasing is the upward trajectory of the gold production graph. Every incentive is being thrown into the golden mix. Historical serendipity came in handy.
Back in 2016, then Vice-President Mnangagwa had championed a momentous Cabinet decision to legitimise SME gold mining. In no time, national gold production shot up. It promptly surpassed and dethroned Virginia golden leaf tobacco as the premier hard currency earner.
The intrepid banker, John Mangudya lost no time in cottoning on to the gold bug. He saw a fail-safe window of anchoring the national currency to our bulging gold horde. The Mosi-oa-Tunya gold coin was born. And the national investor lost no time in reaping the tea leaves of the currency game. The fiat US dollar was displaced as the currency of reference. In came the redoubtable gold of ages as the new anchor of national currency.
President Mnangagwa and his economic dream team of Hon Mthuli Ncube and Mangudya can afford some smugness.
The team exorcised the fiery spectre of hyperinflation. In the process, they delivered a knockout punch to Soros, the billionaire braggart who boasts of “breaking the back of the Bank of England”.
His hedge fund, which had stacked so much on the regime in Zimbabwe, is now losing punters in droves. How is that of plucky Zimbabwe!!
Soros minions can huff and puff in tendentious documentaries spewed by Al Jazeera. There is the coterie of lost national soul Hopewell Chin’ono, the incorrigible settler racist David Coltart, the jilted Ewan MacMillan who cannot countenance the new gold trade exploits of Scott Sakupwanya, his erstwhile garden boy.
Finally, there is the financial illiteracy of dimwit Tendai Biti. They can huff and puff in the cacophony of fellow detractors. One thing is for sure, gold is now the anchor stone of our national currency to the delight of the rescued citizenry.
The fulminations in the Al Jazeera documentary won’t change an iota of that virtuous national currency scenario. Zimbabwe is back to the future of gold.
The national currency ingenuity is well ahead of the ongoing hiatus of Saudi Arabia-threatened United States Petro-dollar, the fledgling Chinese Petro-yuan and the prospect of the Indian Petro-rupee.
The Munhumutapas and Changamire royal ancestors can only be smiling at this new ingenuity by their posterity.
Chris Mutsvangwa is Zanu PF spokesperson. He write here in his personal capacity.
