HARARE Zimbabwes cash strapped central bank will next month begin retrenching about half of its bloated staff as it embarks on an exercise to realign its structures after governor Gideon Gono was instructed to halt his controversial quasi fiscal operations last year, a senior official at the bank said last week.
Speaking on condition that he was not named, the official said most departments in the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ), which were set up to run the controversial operations, have been disbanded and staff in those divisions are expected to be offloaded once the banks new board is set up in the next month and approves the staff trimming exercise. The official said hundreds of workers who had initially decided to quit the RBZ, which had only been paying allowances because of the cash squeeze, have decided to stay until the packages are paid. The package is expected to come once a new board is appointed within the next month, said the official, adding; The bank has promised attractive retrenchment packages. RBZ media manager Kumbirai Nhongo was not immediately available for comment.
Since Zimbabwes power-sharing administration between President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai came into office in February last year and introduced the multicurrency system, the RBZ has failed to pay its workers and announced plans to cut the headcount last year but sources said retrenchments had been delayed by the shortage of cash. The RBZ, once described by Finance Minister Tendai Biti as a mini-government during the height of the quasi fiscal operations, is also facing multiple lawsuits from companies that it contracted to provide food, agricultural equipment, furniture and other goods in the past five years but has failed to pay them after the dollarisation of the economy.
Last month auctioneers flogged off RBZ property including beds, DSTV decoders, bedroom suits, vehicles and refrigerators to recover money the central bank owes to an agricultural equipment supplier, marking an embarrassing end to Gonos controversial operations that made him an instant hero among Mugabes cronies at the height of the countrys economic crisis.
Economists and the International Monetary Fund blame Gono, who became the country’s chief banker in December 2003, for compounding Zimbabwes economic crisis through quasi-fiscal activities that saw the RBZ pump trillions of dollars into financing Mugabes populist projects and political programmes. They say printing money was fuelling inflation. Hyperinflation and the shortage of banknotes were the most visible signs of a severe economic crisis blamed on Mugabe’s policies and seen in shortages of food and every essential commodity.
Post published in: News