It pays to get up early in a country where even the most basic goods are disappearing from shop shelves.
Long queues of shoppers now form early in the morning at many Harare supermarkets and shops, hoping to grab essentials such as sugar and oil amid a price crisis that has sharpened already desperate consumer shortages.
”I know once all this is over, there will be no sugar, cooking oil and soap in the shops. I have no option but to stock up. I might even resell some if I get some extra stuff; it’s a matter of survival,” said Kennedy Sithole, a security guard at a major supermarket chain.
Zimbabwe’s latest shopping nightmare comes after President Robert Mugabe’s government last week ordered a 50% cut in prices to fight galloping inflation, a move critics say is bound to worsen the country’s economic problems.
On Wednesday, Zimbabwe state media reported manufacturers, state firms and some retailers had agreed to cut prices in compliance with the government order, but privately many grumble the drive is unsustainable.
The official move to exert price controls came after a wild week that saw the price of many basic goods jump by more than 300% — a sign inflation, already officially close to 4 500% per year — is spinning ever more wildly out of control.
The government has accused private companies of raising prices as part of a plot to oust Mugabe, who has been pilloried in the West for his controversial policies.
Mugabe (83), in power since independence in 1980, denies mismanaging the economy and accuses Western powers, mainly Britain and the United States, of sabotage over his policy to seize white-owned farms to resettle landless black Zimbabweans.
Government price monitors have already arrested nearly 200 business people — including a ruling party senator — for defying the price freeze, which some economists say is only helping to entrench the black market that many Zimbabweans already rely on for basic goods.
Price panic
Although many supermarkets have complied with the directive, they have run out of stock after panicking consumers — fearing impending shortages — emptied the shelves.
Many manufacturers, meanwhile, have stopped supplying products at the recommended prices fearing massive losses as other prices continue to rise unabated.
The state controlled Herald newspaper on Wednesday reported the Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries (CZI), the country’s biggest industrial body, had resolved to enforce the price cut.
”We are complying with the directive. We will do what we have been ordered to do,” the Herald quoted CZI head Callisto Jokonya as saying.
The government has threatened to seize and nationalise businesses, including foreign mines, it accuses of backing what it calls a British-sponsored campaign to overthrow Mugabe, one of the longest-serving African leaders.
Black-market traders can still supply basic consumer goods, but are themselves under pressure from police officers who have descended on their vending sites, confiscating goods.
Under an operation dubbed Dzikamai (Calm Down), the police have also launched a crackdown on black-market foreign currency traders the government blames for the local currency’s freefall.
Few exhausted shoppers, some of whom got up at 5am to queue, saw any end soon to the price crunch squeezing a country already struggling with a jobless rate above 80% and persistent fuel, foreign currency and food shortages.
”I have no option but to buy whatever I can while it’s still available,” said Ernest Tembo, a shopper from the Dzivarasekwa township, west of Harare. — Reuters