Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe threatened on Wednesday to seize mining firms and other companies if they persist with ”dirty tricks” and keep raising prices in the face of rampant inflation.
”This nonsense of price escalations must come to an end,” the 83-year-old head of state told mourners at the burial in Harare of Paul Armstrong Gunda, a hero of Zimbabwe’s independence movement.
”Those who are in construction and suppliers, take note. We are following you. It’s not going to be an easy game. It’s going to be a rough one. We will never allow ourselves to be defeated by these British tactics.”
”We have resources in our country. We have mines that are producing … The companies must straighten their ways because those in gold mining are externalising gold.”
Mugabe added: ”We are going to arrest them and seize the mines if they go wrong. Take note. We will nationalise them if they continue with their dirty tricks.”
Mugabe’s comments represented the latest threat to foreign companies still operating in Zimbabwe, where the economy is nose-diving as a result of an inflation rate now believed to be about 5 000%.
Last Friday his government published legislation that aims to put 51% of all foreign-owned companies into the hands of indigenous Zimbabweans.
The sky-high inflation rate has led retailers and manufacturers to hike up their prices on a daily basis, leading to widespread shortages.
The government has accused companies and retailers of profiteering and of trying to topple the ruling Zanu-PF party’s long-running regime in cahoots with Britain, the former colonial power in Zimbabwe, and the United States.
Retailers and manufacturers say they have no option but to raise prices in order to stay in business.
Production of gold, once a mainstay of the Zimbabwean economy, has also plummeted due to a lack of equipment and smuggling that the mining firms and the government have both tried in vain to halt. — AFP
