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105 13 World’s “Best” Central Banker ventually, when Gideon Gono, the Reserve Bank governor, was beaten all systems out by the Zimbabwean dollar’s fickleness he recommended that the Rand be informally adopted alongside the Zimbabwean dollar. But he said that he never wrote the 105 page document that had these recommendations; that experts are saying it has Gono’s trademark. These experts are saying its Gono who wrote this document because it has Gono’s hallmark, that is, shallow analysis. The Star, of 22 January 2009, says; it’s not uncommon for developing and transitional economies to formally or informally adopt a second currency. The USA did it during its great depression years, by form of battering certificates; Argentina did it in the 2002 crippling recession by adopting the USA dollar; El Salvador in 2001, and many South American economies uses the dollar informally nowadays; Ukraine and Kazakhstan in the 1990’s allowed the dollar to circulate . As I write this piece, the exchange rate is Z$100 trillion equivalent to US$30, No! In actual fact, it is, Z$1000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000-00, if I have to add back the 3 plus 10 plus 12 zeroes that had been removed before by Gono. This is unfathomable against a 1980 backdrop in which Z$1 was worth US$1.50. Harare economist John Robertson and a lot others, like the CATO institute (98 700 sextillion percent), believe it is; the inflation is in sextillions of percentages, not the suggested November 2008 rate of 80 billion percentages. They believe it’s the world’s highest ever, beating Hungary’s highest ever of 13 quadrillion percentage in 1946. The main cause of this has been hyperinflation in which prices doubled in a matter of hours, and cash in one’s hands devalue before the opportunity to spend it presents itself. As a side story to this piece; it makes me recall how my brother who had spent about 12 years out of the country, in South Africa, E 106 without returning back to Zimbabwe had to grapple, really that badly, with the economics of Zimbabwe when we returned home together in May 2008. At Beitbridge border town we exchanged 100 Rands for 2 billion Zimbabwean dollars. He was so excited and happy for the figure, and could joke with his little boy-son about the fact that going home to Zimbabwe had made him into a billionaire. That, he had touched his first billion, that even his son whom he had also given this bundle of bearer cheques to touch, had also touched a billion dollars, at that young age (2 years). People in that bus laughed at this joke; though to my brother it was not really a joke, as such. He was very keen on this idea, of having had his first billion. By the time we reached Masvingo town, all the money we had had been used up, just to buy a meal for the four of us, that is my brother, his wife, the kid, and me. When we arrived in Harare, about 300km from Masvingo, we had to exchange another 100 Rands, and now it was for Z$3.2 billions for transport to Chitungwiza, which is 25 kilometres from Harare. When we arrived in Chitungwiza, that same day, at night, it was now Z$4 billion dollars for the same 100 Rands. This day alone inducted my brother into Zimbabwe’s mind boggling economics. He was, for the rest of the stay there, very quiet, disturbed, foreboding and anxious to leave for South Africa, and totally astounded. Back to those gonoisms, the Gono in these gonoisms feels it is imperative due to the economic relationship between South Africa and Zimbabwe for Zimbabwe to adopt the Rand to anchor the Zimbabwean dollar. Tendai Biti, the secretary general of the opposition, MDC party, feels this is the thinking of Gono and his inner circle. Robertson points out that the economy had already been randified. The difference, for some years, had been the circulation route, where it has been from illegal to legal. John Hopkins University at Baltimore applied economist, Steve Hanke, in his book, “Zimbabwefrom hyperinflation to growth”, also agrees to some extent, and adds. “If viewed in a narrow profit-and-loss point of view, it is extremely profitable for South Africa, that is, through seigniorage; the revenue a central bank earns from issuing a...

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