SW Radio Africa news - The Independent Voice of Zimbabwe
Gideon Gono’s former advisor at the Reserve Bank, Munyaradzi Kereke, has divulged more damning information about his former boss and laid bare his desire to see him investigated for corruption. After almost two years of endless jibes at one another Kereke on Thursday filed a constitutional application to force the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) to probe Gono over graft. However journalist and political analyst Itai Dzamara said there is no chance that anyone or any institution will dare raise a finger against Gono, as long as President Mugabe is alive. ‘Gono is Mugabe’s protégé and blue eyed boy so to think there is a court in Zimbabwe that would drag him to answer allegations of corruption is just wishful thinking,’ Dzamara said. Dzamara said allegations raised by Kereke should be taken seriously, as the two were the best of buddies before falling out. ‘Kereke was once Gono’s right hand man. He knows everything and he’s not bluffing when he says Gono misappropriated funds from the central bank. The problem with Kereke is that he’s become a huge threat to Mugabe and Gono, to a point where the case will be a big test to the independence of the judiciary if it ever gets to be heard in court,’ Dzamara added. Since the two fell out in January 2012, when Gono reportedly fired Kereke from the central bank, the pair has been trading barbs and throwing accusations each other. Soon after Kereke left the RBZ he launched a fierce verbal assault on Gono, claiming that he did academic work for his ex-boss’s doctoral degree. He then made sensational claims of how Gono looted over $6.5 million and gold from the RBZ, at a time when Zimbabweans were wallowing in poverty. Late last year, Gono hit back at Kereke and filed a $25 million lawsuit for defarmation. This was after Kereke, now the ZANU PF MP for Bikita West, took out whole-page newspaper adverts and sent a lengthy letter to President Mugabe accusing Gono of stealing public funds. But just when it seemed the fued between the two protagonists was cooling down, Kereke on Thursday reignited the rivalry by raising his concerns with the Constitutional Court as to why they were failing to probe allegations of abuse of office, corruption and theft against Gono. In his application, Kereke said he wrote a letter to the commission last year outlining alleged corruption by Gono between 2006 and 2009. In his latest affidavit Kereke alleges that his former boss took more than US$37.5 million, R1.4 million and more than £21,500 from State coffers and converted it to his personal use. It is also alleged that Gono circulated Cabinet minutes and military files to hostile foreign governments in breach of the Official Secrets Act and that Kereke has in his possession proof of all this and is ready to give evidence. Kereke further alleges that four years ago, Gono casually wrote on a scrap paper instructing a junior officer to transfer US$1.5 million into former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s account, and that the money was never recovered by the central bank. Gono allegedly also gave US$200,000 from the Reserve Bank to the Financial Gazette in which he is a major shareholder.