Professor Moyo dismiss Al Jazeera Gold Mafia as "disjointed thesis". He too must be feeling the heat Wilbert Mukori

 When the story first broke that Al Jazeera was going to air a documentary of the gold smuggling and money laundering in Zimbabwe, Zanu PF regime and its apologists dismissed the whole thing s inconsequential. Christopher Mutsvangwa heralded the story as a sanctions-busting success story.

After the first part of the documentary was aired, individuals like Uebert Angel, alias Diplomatic Mafia in the documentary, was stripped of his Ambassador-at-large title and privileges. Monica Mutsvangwa, Minister of Information and Publicity announced there would be a criminal investigation and all those found guilty would face the full wrath of the law.

Well, there is yet another change of direction, this time coming from Professor Jonathan Moyo, a seasoned political turncoat. He is dismissing the documentary as “a disjointed and incoherent thesis”.

“Now that three of its four episodes have been – and notwithstanding the fact that the fourth episode might have bombshells in the form of controversial or shocking utterances by its main interlocutors – there is nothing that the last episode will do to save the documentary's disjointed and incoherent thesis, which would have long gone up in smoke but for the gripping and often self-incriminating verbatim claims of its greedy interlocutors,” wrote Professor Moyo in a Bulawayo24 article.

The primary purpose of the public media the world over, is to educate, inform and/or entertain the public. The Al Jazeera “Zimbabwe: Gold Mafia” documentary has certainly lived to its billing of educating and informing the world about Zimbabwe’s gold smuggling and money laundering criminal activities.  

The Al Jazeera documentary gave details of the quantity of gold smuggled, 80% 0f the US$ 2 billion per year and how the country’s gold is then paid with dirty money. The proceeds of all these criminal activities are shared amongst the Zanu PF ruling elite and their appointed enablers with the Gold Mafia criminal masterminds, get the lion’s share of the loot. The gold-panners, doing the donkey work, get the small change.

The nation has “very little to show for all its gold”, as Tendai Biti readily admits in the documentary because none of the beneficiary pay cooperate or income tax the Mafiosi invest their loot in Dubai and some such safe heavens. But most worrying of all is that the looted wealth is being used to keep the corrupt and tyrannical ruling elite in power at the expense of the long-suffering ordinary people.   

In the documentary, Kamlesh Pattni, alias Gold Mafia, a Kenyan gold smuggler whose activities “nearly bankrupted Kenya” during President Arap Moi’s days, has since immigrated to Zimbabwe to ply his trade. He boasted of helping many of Africa’s tyrants “survive” by using some of gold smuggling loot to buy-off the tyrants’ political opponents. Zimbabwe is awash with political intrigue and mysteries.

Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends had the golden opportunity to implement the democratic reforms during the 2008 to 2013 GNU, which would have ended the Zanu PF dictatorship. They failed to implement even one token reforms. And to add insult to injury, ever since the GNU debacle, MDC/CCC leaders have insisted on participating in flawed elections knowing fully well that doing so would only give Zanu PF legitimacy and thus perpetuating the dictatorship.  

CCC are hell bent in participating in these 2023 elections no matter how flawed the election process got. The only rational explanation to MDC/CCC’s irrational behaviour is that the opposition has been bribed to sell out on reforms and free elections!  

Of course, Al Jazeera’s “Zimbabwe: Gold Mafia” documentary has been an eye opener, the nation would never ever get this from the Zanu PF controlled public media. As a former Minister of Information and Publicity, Professor Moyo, knows only too well how The Herald, ZBC and the rest of the public media had brainwashed the Zimbabwe populous. God only knows what Al Jazeera “thesis” he was wittering about!

“It is unfortunate that there has been a concerted but ill-conceived and desperate campaign to drag @ReserveBankZim into the documentary's mud in pursuit of a hidden agenda,” continued Professor Moyo.

“Factually, and legally in terms of the Gold Trade Act, the #RBZ does not issue gold export or dealership licences, that is a responsibility of Government through Treasury. Fidelity's licence to refine and export gold was therefore issued by Government, not by #RBZ.”

 It is nonsensical that US$2 billion worth in smuggled gold would leave the country and as much in dirty money would flow in and out of the country with no one at RBZ knowing. In this case two of the Bank’s senior managed were not only named but paid for their role in the gold smuggling/ money laundering activities and the Nutty Professors still wants us to believe the RBZ is squeaky clean!

The torrid of criticism of Al Jazeera’s Gold Mafia documentary by Professor Jonathan Moyo is not exactly a lightning bolt out of the clear sky! Professor Jonathan Moyo has criticized his erstwhile Zanu PF colleagues for haunting him out of the country following the November 2017 military coup but has always been careful never to cross certain lines.

He has never criticized MDC’s failure to implement even one reform during the GNU, on the one hand. He became one of Chamisa’s confidants before the 2018 elections and, no doubt, would be holding a senior government position if MDC A had won that election!

On the other hand, Professor Jonathan Moyo has been careful not to blubber too much about Zanu PF corruption and tyranny. He did not want to self-incriminate but also to keep the door open for re-joining Zanu PF.

The Al Jazeera documentary has uncovered so much, he must be feeling the heart even with him hiding in his fox-hole in Kenya. Could it be that one of the individuals named in the documentary helped him smuggle gold and some such valuable; after all that is something Kamlesh Pattni, alias Brother Paul, would do every day before breakfast!