Zimbabwean police have arrested 16 more business executives for raising prices above those stipulated by President Robert Mugabe’s government, a newspaper said on Sunday.
The latest arrests bring to 33 the number of executives arrested since Friday under a police blitz dubbed Operation Reduce Prices, said the official Sunday Mail.
Those arrested included the executives of clothing stores, butcheries and fast food outlets, said the paper.
Police meanwhile threatened to extend their blitz to pharmacies, hardware stores and Harare’s flea markets, informal market places that many city dwellers rely on to buy cheap clothes, shoes and electronic goods.
”There has been non-compliance in sectors such as flea markets, hardwares, pharmacies and the transport industry, just to mention a few,” police spokesperson Andrew Phiri told the paper.
”We are therefore giving the last warning to those who may think that the directive [to reduce prices] excludes them.”
Mugabe’s government two weeks ago warned businesses to reduce their prices by half, or risk being taken over by the government. Teams of police officers and price inspectors have been moving around the country to enforce the decree.
In a move likely to precipitate a fuel crisis, the teams on Saturday ordered service stations in Harare to reduce the price of a litre of diesel and petrol from around Z$200 000 to between Z$55 000 and Z$60 000.
The new price is worth around 34 cents per litre, which is way below the selling price for fuel in the region. In neighbouring Mozambique, petrol sells for nearly $1,50 a litre.
On Saturday Mugabe told a meeting of his ruling Zanu-PF party that price controls were here to stay.
The 83-year-old leader has accused the business community of being behind a plot to unseat his government by raising prices to unaffordable levels.
”Any normal person could see that the pricing system was no longer predicated only on the need to sustain business but now bordered on criminal and even political considerations,” he said in the capital Harare.
”Let it be known that we intend to ensure that the price controls do not only stay but begin to bring long-term tangible relief and more disposable incomes to our people.”
Business executives say the price hikes are necessary to remain profitable amid an economic crisis marked by acute shortages of fuel, power and foreign currency and inflation of more than 4 500%.
No need for new Constitution
Mugabe said on Saturday there was no need to create a new Constitution, resisting opposition demands for a new charter before elections next year.
”President Robert Mugabe says the current Constitution serves the nation well and there is no reason to change it,” state radio said.
Critics say Mugabe has manipulated the existing Constitution to tighten his grip on power.
The opposition has demanded a new draft before next year’s polls, in which the veteran leader says he will run.
Mugabe’s government has amended the Constitution adopted at independence 17 times and last month proposed new changes to allow joint presidential and parliamentary polls in 2008.
Critics say the move may allow give Zanu-PF, which dominates Parliament, a free hand to pick Mugabe’s successor and hurt mediation efforts by South Africa to help end a political crisis.
South African President Thabo Mbeki was tasked last March by regional heads to mediate between Zanu-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
That followed sharply rising tensions after opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and dozens of other MDC members suffered serious injuries after being arrested by police at an aborted prayer rally in Harare.
Mugabe accuses the MDC of being stooges of Zimbabwe’s former colonial power Britain in an effort to oust his government, as punishment for seizing and redistributing white-owned commercial farms to landless Zimbabweans.
The president has previously rejected calls for a new Constitution. Last year, he told a group of church leaders pushing for political reforms that the current national charter was ”sacrosanct”. – Reuters, Sapa-DPA