President Robert Mugabe’s government has no intention of stopping its blitz on price hikers, a Cabinet minister was quoted as saying on Tuesday.
Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said Zimbabweans had welcomed the blitz on stores and supermarkets, which has seen prices halved and the arrests of more than 1 300 people for charging too much.
”The government is serious about price monitoring and there is no going back, Ndlovu said in quotes carried by the official Herald newspaper.
”The Zimbabwean people have welcomed these measures that the government has taken in defence of people’s livelihoods,” he said.
Police in the Southern African country launched Operation Reduce Prices last week, ordering store managers to immediately slash prices.
The move followed accusations from the government that businesses were colluding with the West in a bid to bring about regime change in crisis-ridden Zimbabwe.
Shoppers stampeded to stores to pick up bargains as executives were arrested — in some cases allegedly after being beaten — and taken away.
Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, has predicted the operation will bring serious chaos to the country. Already stores in major towns are fast emptying.
In the city of Harare, fuel stations appear to have run dry after the government ordered them to sell fuel at a knock-down rate of about Z$60 000 a litre. Fuel prices were as high as Z$300 000 a litre on the black market on the weekend.
In the eastern border town of Mutare, butcheries have closed and meat freezers in supermarkets are totally empty, according to witnesses. Only tiny quantities of bread were being baked on Monday and long queues formed both in and outside stores.
But the minister claimed that sanity was now beginning to prevail in the economy. Zimbabwe’s detractors will as before be put to shame, he said, adding that predictions of collapse of the government are unfounded and should be scoffed at.
Business as usual
South African companies affected by the clampdown on business on Zimbabwe have not made complaints to Pretoria’s mission in Harare, the Foreign Affairs Department said on Monday.
”If indeed they are faced with this critical situation, they need to get in touch with the embassy in Harare and inform them of their plight,” said spokesperson Ronnie Mamoepa.
”They are obliged to provide assistance to South Africans in distress abroad. At this stage, however, there are no reports of any South African companies having raised concern.”
Mamoepa reiterated that Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Aziz Pahad had said earlier this week he was concerned about the reported deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe.
Earlier in the day, South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) radio news reported that the Edgars clothing chain had halved its prices in Zimbabwe after one of its executives was arrested.
”It’s business as usual with all goods selling at half price,” Mark Bauer, an executive of the Edcon group, said on Monday.
Life-threatening proportions
Meanwhile, the new economic policy in Zimbabwe has caused the economic situation to reach life-threatening proportions, the Solidarity Peace Trust said on Tuesday.
”There is no food in rural areas and soon there will be none in the urban areas if the government’s current policing action on prices continues,” chairperson Archbishop Pius Ncube told reporters at the launch of the trust’s report on the political and economic situation in Zimbabwe.
Ncube said there was already almost no fuel in Zimbabwe.
He said schools, hospitals and other basic services scarcely functioned due to workers’ dissatisfaction.
”We are being reduced to the most basic level every day, people are reduced to hunting for a loaf of bread. It might take you hours to get bread, if you get.”
He said the acknowledgement of the African Union that Zimbabwe committed human rights violations had given him hope that Africa had woken up to the seriousness of the situation.
He said that torture of political opposition and civic organisation leaders in March this year was unjustified and evil.
”The Zimbabwean government must be discouraged by the international community.”
Ncube said the trust and civic organisations supported the Southern African Development Community mediation process led by President Thabo Mbeki.
He labelled Mugabe as a criminal who would do anything to stay in power.
”Mugabe loves power, he lives for power. Even his own party wants him to step down,” said Ncube. — Sapa-dpa