'Reintroduce real free market economy,' argue Cross - but even more so on political front

"Over the past 39 years of Independence we have created a network of corrupt individuals and organisations that has involved the decision makers in Government and in many parts of the private sector and which has been able to syphon off from our economy perhaps as much as US$120 billion," admitted Eddie Cross.

"How do we deal with the malady - I would like to follow Jerry Rawlings example; when he took over in Ghana, he had the Police arrest 15 major and well known corrupt people, took them down to the beach and had them executed in front of a crowd of 15 000 people."

So Eddie Cross now admit that corruption is a serious problem in Zimbabwe and that it has sucked the life blood out of the nation's economy. He even admits on the need to have free, fair and credible elections as one way of removing the corrupt and incompetent leaders.

"Firstly, there has to be a commitment to eliminating the worst forms of corruption in our society from the very top. If the President and his Cabinet do not exhibit such a commitment in lifestyle and in practice, then little can be done except vote in the next election, if that means anything," he said.

What he has conveniently refused to acknowledge is that Mnangagwa and Zanu PF rigged last year's elections. Mr Cross and all the opposition parties and candidates who participated in last year's elections have all to the man and woman accepted the elections as having been free, fair and credible and the ZEC declared results as correct and legitimate. All candidate that is except Nelson Chamisa.

Chamisa accepted the election process as free, fair and credible and results of the parliamentary race but not the presidential race. Everyone else condemned the elections because the process was full of flaws and illegalities.

"The electoral commission lacked full independence and appeared to not always act in an impartial manner. The final results as announced by the Electoral Commission contained numerous errors and lacked adequate traceability, transparency and verifiability. Finally, the restrictions on political freedoms, the excessive use of force by security forces and abuses of human rights in the post-election period undermined the corresponding positive aspects during the pre-election campaign. As such, many aspects of the 2018 elections in Zimbabwe failed to meet international standards," said the EU Election Observer Mission in its final report.

What Chamisa is doing is cherry picking; he is refusing to accept Mnangagwa as legitimate but only to force the later to concede a gravy train seat for himself!

"But the real answer, which would be fast and efficient with immediate benefits would be just reintroduce a real market economy - across the board," argued Cross.

"For example, if we introduced a few simple rules to the Interbank Market for foreign currency and created a real, transparent, open market operated by the Banks under supervision and insisted that all foreign currency transactions in the formal sector go through that process, I can assure you that the market would establish itself as the determinant of the value of local currencies in all other currencies - just as it does in every other economy in the World."

How naive! You cannot trust corrupt and incompetent tyrants to implement free market rules when they believe they are special and above the law. After 39 years of trying and failing to make a free market economy work regardless of the reality of country being ruled by a corrupt and tyrannical dictatorship. How many more years are you going to let this madness continue?

As long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs the country will never attract investors and lenders.

Free market forces work in the economy but the same concept works in politics too, it is called democracy. We need to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship by implementing the raft of democratic reforms Mr Cross and his MDC friends failed to implement during the 2008 to 2013 GNU and thus guarantee free, fair and credible elections.

The trouble with people like Eddie Cross and Professor Mthuli Ncube is that they KNOW Zimbabwe is a pariah state but rather than deal with that reality, they pretend that it is healthy and functioning democracy. So the nation is going through this hell of austerities but will gain nothing because these measures will only work in a healthy and functioning democracy.