Davos will not win Mnangagwa the elections, bread and butter issues will

President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s call to investors at Davos to come and invest in Zimbabwe because it is now open for business may have had an impact but that will not win him an election that is now just around the corner, Movement for Democratic Change legislator Eddie Cross says.

“That will be decided on real bread and butter issues,” he says on his blog.

Cross’s message is reminiscent of what Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions leader Japhet Moyo told the MDC leadership just before the 2013 elections.

“Let me be very clear Cde Tendai Biti, mind your language when you are in government because hausati wavakutonga. Ndizvo ka? Be very careful of what you say. You are destroying the party uchiti urikupliza ma investors. Vanhu vanovhota are the poor, not the investor. Mind your language Mr Biti. How do we defend an MDC minister? At least you dialogue with workers,” he told the man who was credited with the country’s turnaround.

Cross says that all the solutions proffered by the government – by Mnangagwa, by Chinamasa, by Mangudya are not taken seriously.

“They in fact are not the solution,” he argues. “The real solution is to simply give Zimbabweans back the freedoms they got from the GNU (government of national unity) in 2009 which swept away the problems that had brought us to our knees in 2008.

“We need to take exchange controls from the Reserve Bank – give it back to commercial banks and allow the market to allocate and value the different forms of cash in the market.

“We need to abandon import restrictions and allow people to import what they want and use their money in any way they feel is best for them, after all it is their money.

“We need to reintroduce a proper local currency and draw on the experience of others as to how to manage the new means of exchange and make sure that that is all that it is and it cannot be used by the Minister of Finance to fill the fiscal gap in his budget, he must find a solution to that in pursuing the tried and tested means that others who have walked that road themselves have followed with success.

“It is not rocket science – Botswana, Zambia and Mozambique have all done it successfully. We know what needs to be done – get on with it and stop trying to fix market driven problems with non-market solutions that simply do not work.”

Ed: What is your take on this? Is this not just another paper solution?

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