OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Thursday 4.30pm
THE five-yearly congress of Zimbabwe’s governing Zanu(PF) party opened on Thursday with President Robert Mugabe blaming the country’s economic woes on sabotage by foreign-owned companies and banks operating in the country.
Mugabe said steep price rises and shortages of commodities such as fuel and foreign currency are artificial and have the primary aim of making life difficult for Zimbabweans in a bid to unseat his government.
“We see prices going up and life becoming difficult as disposable incomes are continually eroded,” Mugabe told some 7000 congress participants in his keynote address at the congress. He said the key players in the machinations are “foreign banks, who withhold foreign currency so there can be shortages”.
Of late, Mugabe charged, they have begun sabotaging fuel supplies to stimulate panic buying, create an artificial shortage and make it difficult for people to travel around the festive period. “Beware of the enemy, his ways are the subtle ways of the devil,” he told a cheering crowd of supporters gathered at the Yugoslav-built Harare International Conference Centre.
Zimbabwe faces its worse economic ills in history, and commentators say the crisis could threaten the government’s 19-year rule.
Mugabe said Zimbabwe had liberalised its economy too widely and that it is time to correct the situation. “But when we want to correct that, they say Mugabe is a dictator, Mugabe is authoritarian,” he complained, adding: “I stand for the wishes of my people.” The congress of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) is the third to be held in independent Zimbabwe. — AFP
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