Forget about economic recovery unless Zimbabwe holds free and fair elections- Cross

HON. CROSS: This overhang of debt Mr. Speaker basically inhibits recovery because the international community requires that we service our obligations before new financing can be made available. It is virtually impossible in the modern world today to get your economy back on its feet without access to the international market for funding.

If you take a country like China, China in building its economy – which is today worth about a $100 trillion, has borrowed in excess of $250 trillion from the international market. They have done that at interest rates amounting to one or two percent per annum. Floating around the world today is about $100 trillion of loose cash for which there is no outlet. The people who hold these vast resources are anxious to invest in places which are safe, where they can feel they can get a return and where their money ultimately can be recovered to them. We pay in excess of 12-15% or even 20% per annum for funding here.

I have been in business for more than 50 years. You cannot run a business at 15 or 20% interest. It is not possible. You cannot make enough money to service those debts. At 1 or 2% interest per annum you can do just about anything, and the Chinese miracle has been built on cheap financing from the international market. Unless we get ourselves back into that position so that we can access that sort of funding, you can forget any economic recovery in Zimbabwe and the only way to do that is a free and fair election.

The American Ambassador says he cannot handle the enquiries that he is receiving from the United States. I personally have been involved in the negotiation of contracts worth nearly $3 billion in the last two months. This is a sign Mr. Speaker Sir, that the international community is responding to something. What they are responding to is the commitment by this Government to a free and fair election. We in the opposition, the MDC-T have never asked for anything more. We just want a level playing field, the opportunity to put our case in front of the people and let the people decide who will form the Government.

In the past 17 years I have been in the trenches in the opposition, and I can tell you – we have been beaten, killed, murdered in accidents and have had one person abducted per day since 2000. Nearly 5 000 people of the MDC structures has been abducted, that is one person per day for 17 years and – [HON. MEMBERS: Inaudible interjections.] – Mr. Speaker Sir, my colleagues on the other side are claiming that I am not speaking the truth. Mr. Speaker, you know me better than that. If my colleagues want a list of those people abducted, together with their identity numbers and dates on which they were abducted and what happened to them, I can provide them. Mr. Speaker Sir, I am prepared to provide that list to the media and it is not mythological but the problem is because of this sorty of activity which is basically on attack on democracy. The international community sees these activities, receive the reports from us and declare the election subsequently illegitimate.

Mr. Speaker, this Bill is of vital importance. I support it 100%. It is not enough Hon. Minister and you know that. This will not deliver a free and fair election on its own. We need to do more, but what every Member in this House needs to understand is that Zimbabwe today, 38 years after independence is poorer than it was at independence. I said last night in radio interview that my generation, your generation, our generation, has failed Zimbabwe because we are going out leaving behind a country which is poorer, more marginalised, more isolated than at any time independence.

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