Moyo slams ‘ignorant’ Gono

MOYO GONO P1
Clemence Manyukwe News Editor

FORMER Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Dr Gideon Gono’s claims that his failure to get a Senate seat was due to Zanu-PF factional fights is a “distortion of facts”, Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo said last night. Prof Moyo said Dr Gono’s statements demonstrate the ex-central bank chief’s ignorance of the law.

Dr Gono’s push to become Zanu-PF’s Manicaland senator – replacing Cde Kumbirai Kangai who died last year – went up in smoke when the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) disqualified him on the basis that he is not a registered voter in that province.

ZEC also dismissed as unconstitutional Dr Gono’s purported registration as a voter in Harare and the subsequent bid to transfer his name to Manicaland by the Registrar General’s office, saying the voters roll had been closed on July 10 for the July 31, 2013 harmonised elections.

ZEC also said the function to register and transfer voters was now in its hands and described the RG’s actions on the matter as null and void.
Dr Gono – who was targeting to become a senator using the proportional representation system – came out guns blazing, charging that his disqualification was as a result of factional fights in Zanu-PF. He said that the factionalism could be found in both the public and private sectors as well as security bodies and the judiciary among other pillars of the State.

Prof Moyo said Dr Gono’s claims contained three gross misrepresentations that are harmful to the country’s national and economic interests.
He added that his disqualification was a constitutional matter which had nothing whatsoever to do with real or imagined factionalism in Zanu-PF.

“It’s abundantly self-evident that, by any means available or not, Dr Gono is desperate to be a senator for Manicaland Province, a provincial parliamentary seat he apparently mistakes for Buhera district. This explains why he has become so emotional and reckless about his comments to the point of displaying his ignorance of the law in public,” said Prof Moyo.

“The fact of the matter is that when Dr Gono sought and was given a confirmation of transfer of his voter registration from a constituency in Harare to Buhera West on December 5, 2013, that confirmation on that date was a legal nullity as the Registrar General ceased to have legal authority to effect such transfers on July 10, 2013.

“The fact that Dr Gono was, as he still maybe, ignorant of this legal position is not a defence. Furthermore, it’s neither fair nor responsible for Dr Gono to blame anyone else for his ignorance of the law.”

The minister said “rather than personalising the process and distorting facts and casting aspersions, the former RBZ chief should tell voters in Buhera in particular and Manicaland in general why he did not register as a voter there by July 10, 2013, ahead of last year’s polls as provided in the law as this would have enabled him to cast his vote in a province he so desperately now wants to represent by hook or crook.”

Dr Gono yesterday told a daily newspaper that “no amount of blackmail though can change my stance of remaining out of all factions except that of and led by the President and First Secretary of our party, Cde RG Mugabe and all that he stands for.”

Prof Moyo blasted: “It is preposterous and objectionable in the extreme for Dr Gono to claim that he is remaining out of all factions except that of and led by the President.

“President Mugabe does not have and does not lead a faction. The President leads Zanu-PF, the government and the nation of Zimbabwe.
“In other words, President Mugabe leads not some but all of us Zimbabweans. An aspiring senator is ordinarily expected to understand this basic fact.”

Prof Moyo said like any other Zimbabwean, Dr Gono is entitled to seek public office, but he must not expect to get it while “operating outside the box and pretending that seeking a senatorial seat in Manicaland is an extraordinary circumstance requiring extraordinary measures including gross misinterpretations, outlandish and inflammatory exaggerations that are harmful to the country’s national and economic interests.”

“The third gross misrepresentation in Dr Gono’s media statement is particularly concerning in terms of the potential damage of its untruth to the economy and national interest,” the minister went on.

“According to Dr Gono, ‘History will condemn us badly if current situation is allowed to persist where the private and public sectors of our economy, civil service, the media and other statutory, judiciary and security bodies are now being perceived by the ordinary persons as appearing to be discharging their duties along factional ethic lines.’ This is an outlandish exaggerated and inflammatory statement whose inciting intent borders on subversion.

“It is scandalous for Dr Gono to emotively claim that all institutions and agencies of the State as well as the private sector in Zimbabwe today are discharging their duties along factional or ethnic lines.

“What is particularly scandalous about this statement is that it is not a product of research or any objective reflection, but is Dr Gono’s personal opinion in pursuit of his personal interest to become a senator for Manicaland, even if there is no enabling legal basis for that.”

The minister said it was common cause that the government is “seized with the mammoth task of aligning existing laws with the new Constitution and this task is being undertaken in a comprehensive way through a General Laws Amendment Bill, with respect to consequential or technical amendments.”

He added: “The transfer from the Registrar General to ZEC of the responsibility to register voters is but one example of the pending alignment of laws with the new Constitution to be included in the General Laws Amendment Bill that government is drafting.

“It is repugnant and therefore unacceptable that the enactment of any law should be hurried or done to suit the political interests of an individual or mitigate the consequences of anybody’s ignorance of the law.”

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