Zimpapers Logo

Christopher Mutsvangwa

ZANU PF Secretary for Information and Publicity

The whole gold hullabaloo about illicit gold is plain codswallop and balderdash. President Mnangagwa is stoically unmoved.

The country’s detractors coalesced around George Soros and his Open Society Institute of Southern Africa (OSISA), the phalanx of evil is clearly miffed and terribly disappointed. 

Intrepid Zimbabwe has reverted to and resurrected gold as the reference anchor of its national currency and the United States dollar.

For years, hyper-inflation has been the bane and bug bear of the besieged Zimbabwe economy. The Anglo-Saxon world and its European kith and kin launched a concerted economic attack on following the epochal Land Reform Programme of 2002. 

Their goal was to force Zimbabwe to its knees so it could contritely cry “Uncle”. 

The fiat US dollar, as the infant global currency of new baby America, was deployed to mercilessly decimate the Zim dollar fiat money inherited from colonial Rhodesia.

Lest it be forgotten, the United States is a mere 300-years-old. The ascendancy of the US dollar to global currency supremacy is post the World War II phenomenon.

In 1972, President Richard Nixon enthroned it. He coaxed Saudi Arabia to create the US Petrodollar, a no-brainer as fossil petroleum is the foremost commodity of global trade.

Back to Harare.

The desperate currency scenario of 2008, cried for creative innovation to climb out of the economic abyss.

History obliged. 

The advent of President Mnangagwa and his Second Republic brought about new, fresh and bold thinking.

The magic wand of effective riposte was exhumed from our eight centuries old Great Zimbabwe Civilisation. Yes. 

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, as appealing to universal humanity regardless of geographical location of humanity. 

The many and imposing stone edifices that dot the plateau between the Zambezi and the Limpopo; the Kalahari Desert and Indian Ocean, tell a story of economic growth that had a generally stable currency. 

It was sanitised of the scourge of debilitating inflation. 

Indeed, some scholarship attributes 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. These are wafted by Egyptians, Hebrews, Arabs, Persians, Somalis, Ottoman Turks, Indians, Malays and even the far away Chinese.

Later on, imperial and mercantilist Europe of Portugal, England, Germany and even the localised Afrikaners, all jousted for Zimbabwe’s gold riches. 

It was the imperial arch-plunderer and marauder, Cecil John Rhodes, who finally wrestled this coveted plateau of mouth-watering gold endowment. His private and buccaneering Pioneer Column raised its flag at Fort Salisbury in 1890. 

Thus, opening the modern chapter of the Zimbabwe nation. The British Empire carried the day and the prize.

Refocus on the 

national currency woes

It dawned upon President Mnangagwa that it was a scandalous and ruinous embarrassment for Zimbabwe to be manacled to a foreign fiat currency.

This needed not be the case.

Quite apart from earning other hard currencies through global commerce, Zimbabwe actually mined gold, the venerable gold currency of ages. All of it in copious quantities.

This turned out to be the Eureka moment. 

In the last five years of the Second Republic, President Mnangagwa has meticulously nurtured and expanded gold production. 

As fate would have it, 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. 

As it may, historical serendipity came in handy. Back in 2016, then Vice President Mnangagwa had championed a momentous Cabinet decision to legitimise SME gold mining. 

He was spearheading a resolution of the 2013 Masvingo War Veterans Congress. 

In no time national gold production shot up. It quickly surpassed then permanently dethroned Virginia golden leaf tobacco as the premier hard currency earner of Zimbabwe.

The resourceful banker, Dr John Mangudya, would lose 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. 

Hurrah, the Mosi-oa-Tunya gold coin was born.

Henceforth, the national investor players were enchanted. The Mosi-oa-Tunya turned out to be a boon to fund managers keen to store value and diversify risk. 

It has since been mopping up excess Zim dollars, in so doing, taming the hyperinflation reflexes.

The fiat US dollar was displaced as the currency of reference. In came the redoubtable gold of all ages as the new pivot of the national currency.

The President and his economic Dream Team of Honourable Mthuli Ncube and Dr John Mangudya, can afford some smugness. 

The team is on the road to exorcise the fiery spectre of hyperinflation. In the process, they delivered a knockout punch to George Soros, the billionaire braggart who infamously boasts “breaking the back of the Bank of England”. 

The global hedge fund king has been caught napping.

His hedge fund that had stacked so much on the quixotic “regime change” in Zimbabwe, is floundering. Punters are dashing to the exits in droves.

How is that for plucky Zimbabwe!

George Soros’ minions can huff and puff in tendentious documentaries spewed by Al Jazeera.

There is this coterie of lost national soul, Hopewell Chin’ono, the incorrigible settler David Coltart, the jilted Ewan Macmillan, who cannot countenance the new gold trade exploits of Scott Sakupwanya, his erstwhile gardener.

Finally, there is the dimwit financial illiteracy of Tendai Biti. A loquacious lawyer who vainly and hopelessly craves to moonlight as a boffin of the discipline of finance.  

They can holler in the cacophony of fellow detractors. 

One thing is sure though. 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. This national currency ingenuity is miles ahead of the ongoing hiatus of the Saudi Arabia threatened United States petro-dollar, the fledgling Chinese petro-yuan, and the prospect of the Indian petro-rupee. There is also the yuan-rouble dalliance which is already afoot.

The Munhumutapa and Changamire royal ancestors can only be smiling at this new resourcefulness evinced by the offspring of their posterity.

The blatantly geopolitical and ideological International Monetary Fund of the flailing Bretton Woods system, fired the first salvo against the Zimbabwe national currency and its refugee into our national gold bonanza.

The fawning pack dogs of George Soros have joined the fray, barking in unison.

Gold is good, proper and strong. President Mnangagwa will not be deterred in his pursuit of the good for Zimbabwe.

Looting means there is insidious, unfair and often violent deprivation. 

President Mnangagwa came to power when Zimbabwe was scratching its bottom. 

Five years later, there is the buoyancy of palpable hope among all population groups. 

The ruling Zanu PF is being patronised by burgeoning affiliate groups. 

We ‘for ED’ is a coveted badge of honour from all segments of society.

Granaries are feeling up as local produce displaces reliance on imports of cereals and wheat.

Revival and expansion of hectarage under traditional grains healthily enriches the national cuisine.

The golden leaf contract tobacco floors are notching up sales records for 180 000 SME tobacco farmers.

Zimbabwe blueberries, avocados, macadamia nuts satisfy discerning palates in London, Dubai, Hong Kong.

The bevy of much-sought after minerals is exciting and attracting first tier, world class billionaires. Beyond traditional gold and platinum group metals, new “white gold” lithium is kicking in to fill the national Treasury. Zimbabwe is poised to cash in as new electric energy vehicles (NEEVs) displace fossil fuel cars.

The nascent lithium ion battery industry is gobbling up billions in lithium value chain investment. Goromonzi’s Huayou Prospect Lithium has broken into new territory with production of beneficiated lithium carbonate this first quarter of 2023.

Tsingshan Steel, the global metals behemoth, is sprinting to production in Manhize. By the end of the year, Zimbabwe returns to global carbon steel in style to churn out 600 000 tonnes annually. 

All from a steel blast furnace which will be aided by a slew of other mines, all the way to 10 to 15 million tonnes to join the global league of steel.

Large scale “green field” mining projects drive the development of enabling infrastructure of energy, water, transport and logistics, telecommunications, new urban centres and other accompanying services.

Modernised airports are attracting ever growing tourist arrivals to ogle the scenic Victoria Falls and other delectable tourist destinations offered by Zimbabwe.

This brief rundown of the rising fortunes of the national economy are enthusing well-wishers. By the same token, they are engendering apoplectic panic to those who had lit dying fires of the regime change agenda. 

No wonder, the troop to Al Jazeera TV to conjure ghost stories of raging savannah grass fires in the Sahara Desert.

Every rated consultancy is buoyant about the prospects of high economic growth from Harare. Phoney stories of looting peddled by sulking losers won’t change the trajectory of national hope.

A heart throb pumping economy debunks all stories of gold looting peddled by Al Jazeera TV                              Network.

New cars are clogging the highways, fuel queues have long disappeared, electricity consumption is outgrowing supply.

One cannot cry “thief is a room” where everyone has one’s purse in his pocket, except for mischief and jealousy owing to decades of imperial and colonial plunder.

And why besmirch Emirati rulers and their world class airline company?