Dr Gono and Dr Mangudya were ‘crisis RBZ governors’ during a time of extraordinary ‘crisis’ circumstances in the country triggered by crippling US-led western economic sanctions and coercive financial and geopolitical measures in which Zimbabwe found itself in December 2001 when the US legislated its hostility and regime change agenda in Zimbabwe under Zdera, and when subsequently the US designated the situation in Zimbabwe as posing a an ‘unusual’ threat to its national security interests; and when the US declared a ‘national emergency’ – which was tantamount to a declaration of war – to ostensibly deal with that alleged ‘crisis’ situation in Zimbabwe under draconian presidential executive orders that imposed horrible economic sanctions in March 2003, November 2005 and July 2005 which destroyed lives and livelihoods; the bulk of which were lifted only as recent as 4 March 2024.
There’s no need for rocket science to understand the critically dangerous circumstances of the state of Zimbabwe’s economy and society that necessitated the kind of frontline activist and interventionist communication strategies, and the type of public and stakeholder engagement adopted particularly by Dr Gono, but also to a considerable extent by Dr Mangudya. Anyone who does not understand the clear and present danger posed to the country by those circumstances, will never understand anything.
The doctrine of necessity – regarding the survival of the motherland – informed the monetary and quasi-fiscal policies and strategic communication approaches adopted by Dr Gono and Dr Mangudya respectively, to defend and protect Zimbabwe’s sovereignty and economic survival in order to save the lives and to sustain livelihoods of Zimbabweans, as a matter of the country’s national and security interests.
Current and future generations of Zimbabweans owe both Dr Gono and Dr Mangudya separately, an untold debt of gratitude for their having been there and courageously risen to the call of national duty when Zimbabwe was at the crossroads, in the face of a clear existential threat that needed to be thwarted by being nipped in the bud.
But the national and regional situations, and the global geopolitics, have radically changed, there’s now a new situation in the country, the Sadc region and internationally very different from the situation that defined Zimbabwe’s economy and society; especially from March 2003 to March 2024, not least because of the revocation of the US sanctions executive orders on 4 March 2024 which, for all intent and purposes, coincided with Dr Mushayavanhu’s appointment as RBZ Governor, as some kind of ‘good’ omen.
In this regard, while Dr Mushayavanhu as the new RBZ Governor has a lot to learn from the experiences of Dr Gono and Dr Mangudya, as the two recent past governors under incredibly volatile times; he has even more to learn from the experiences of Dr James Kombo Moyana and Dr Leonard Tsumba who respectively preceded Dr Gono and Dr Mangudya; for the obvious fact that they laid the paradigm and culture of what it meant or how it was to be an RBZ governor in relatively ‘calm’ times, not dominated by hostile geopolitics and harsh and coercive economic sanctions seeking regime change in the country, during which it was possible to formulate and implement some degree of ‘pure’ economics using technical instruments of monetary policy.
Given the foregoing, the economic history of Zimbabwe is arguably best told with reference to the tenure of four substantive RBZ governors: Dr Moyana, Dr Tsumba, Dr Gono and Dr Mangudya whose terms in office define four discernible, critical and defining economic phases that the country has gone through, the most dramatic of which were the phases under Dr Gono and Dr Mangudya, respectively.
Notably, the transitions after the tenures of Dr Tsumba and Dr Gono were longer than should have been the case; hence Mr Charles Chikaura acted between May 2003 and November 2003 before Dr Gono assumed office; and Dr Charity Dhliwayo acted between December 2013 and April 2014 before Dr Mangudya commenced his tenure.
Back to the point, and it’s an important one, Zimbabwe is standing today and is able to reset and move forward because of the respectively extraordinary and, from a textbook point of view, unorthodox interventions pursued and implemented by Dr Gono and Dr Mangudya, without which Zimbabwe would have been a failed state in the literal or conventional sense.
Now Zimbabwe is on the cusp of a new economic phase so to speak — which is aligned with the tenure of the four substantive RBZ governors between 1980 and 2024 – the fifth one since independence, and the coincidence between this phase and the appointment of Dr Mushayavanhu is an opportunity for him to place his appointment and the task it implies within a historical context that is not a ‘business as usual’ proposition.
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