Zimbabwean police have arrested more than 1 300 shop owners and business executives for defying the government’s orders to reduce prices, state radio said on Monday.
President Robert Mugabe’s government, concerned by rocketing prices that could trigger social unrest, had ordered shops and businesses to reduce their prices to levels used on June 18, or face arrest.
Last week price inspectors accompanied by teams of police began visiting shops countrywide ordering prices down, sometimes by as much as half under a police blitz dubbed Operation Reduce Prices.
Since the inception of Operation Reduce Prices police crack teams operating in conjunction with other government units have arrested 1 328 shop owners, police spokesperson Oliver Mandipaka was quoted as saying in a statement.
Those arrested include company directors, general managers and sales managers, he said.
Some of them were due to appear in court on Monday facing charges that include failing to comply with the government directive to reduce prices to June 18 levels, failure to display prices and hoarding of goods.
Police meanwhile have threatened to extend their blitz to pharmacies, hardware stores and Harare’s flea markets — informal marketplaces that many city dwellers rely on to buy cheap clothes, shoes and electronic goods.
In a move likely to precipitate a fuel crisis, the price inspectors 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 US 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.
Mugabe says the price hikes are part of an imperialist plot to unseat the government.
But retailers and manufacturers say their high prices are justified amid an economic crisis marked by acute shortages of fuel, power and foreign currency and inflation of more than 4 500%.
Rescue plan
A plan to rescue Zimbabwe’s flailing economy by pegging the Zimbabwe dollar to the South African rand is being put together by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Sunday Independent reported.
The plan, according to the paper, would involve extending the multilateral monetary area (MMA) of South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland to Zimbabwe.
The rand is legal tender in MMA countries and local currencies are pegged to it, stabilising their exchange rate with the dollar and other major currencies.
Record inflation, officially put at 4 500% but thought to be up to twice as high, has rendered the Zimbabwe dollar, and Zimbabweans’ salaries, almost worthless.
On the black market the US dollar trades for about Z$250 000.
SADC’s Zimbabwe rescue package would see the Reserve Banks of South Africa and Botswana pump money into the Reserve Bank in Harare. – Sapa-DPA