President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party has threatened to seize commercial companies it says are trying to provoke food riots in the wake of last week’s parliamentary elections.
”Some of the manufacturers could have unilaterally increased prices with the ulterior motive of inducing people to blame the government and trigger food riots,” the head of the party’s women’s league, Nyasha Chikwinya, said in an article published on Wednesday in the state-owned daily newspaper, The Herald.
Trade Minister Samuel Mumbengegwi issued a statement saying manufacturers and retailers who had raised prices of staples such as sugar, salt, soap and cooking oil by up to 25% since the March 31 poll ”should revert to previous levels because the increases were not approved”.
”We have been understudying the running of the companies from the days of [1998] food riots and shortages. Enough is enough. This cannot go on any longer,” said Chikwinya.
In 2002, reacting to foreign pressure, the government stopped militants from invading companies after the seizure of 5 000 white-owned farms. Some of the invaded premises belonged to South African subsidiaries, protected by international investment agreements.
The government has been failing for months to set new maximum prices in the face of hyperinflation, which reached 620% last year before falling back to an official 127% in March — a figure many economists question.
Despite the country’s chronic economic problems, with 70% unemployment and 3,8-million of Zimbabwe’s 11,6-million population now living abroad, Zanu-PF claimed 78 parliamentary seats in last week’s elections, compared to 41 for the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change. With Mugabe nominating a further 30 in the 150-seat parliament, he may now amend the constitution at will.
Chikwinya said that under Zanu-PF management of the seized companies, ”we will produce good results and shame our detractors”.
Appealing for an end to panic buying and hoarding, Mumbengegwi said temporary absence of maize meal from stores was a result of temporary ”logistical problems” and ”millers were now bringing the situation under control.”
Mugabe (81), in power since the country won independence from Britain in 1980, alleges Zimbabwe’s economic problems stem from British reprisals for his ”fast track” redistribution of former white farms. But critics say he has undermined production and exports, using agitation for land reform as a smoke screen to intimidating opposition.
On the eve of the elections, his government raised the national statutory minimum wage tenfold to Z$950,000 (about R128) a month, a move unions predicted would lead to increased unemployment and illicit use of child labour. — Sapa-AP