Zimbabwean police have set up roadblocks to stop the movement of basic commodities between cities and rural areas, ZimOnline reported on Wednesday.
Police spokesperson Oliver Mandipaka on Tuesday told state radio that police had information that city shop owners were moving loads of basic commodities to rural areas for ”safe keeping”.
Owners were apparently seeking to evade government price control and anti-hoarding squads.
Mandipaka said the roadblocks were also aimed at preventing farmers from moving maize to urban areas, but did not explain why.
Police sources said at least 100kg of maize from travellers ferrying it to the city were seized on Tuesday at a roadblock along Victoria Falls road linking Bulawayo to the rural Matabeleland North province.
Industry Minister and head of the government’s price monitoring and stabilisation taskforce Obert Mpofu was not immediately available for comment.
The government last month froze prices of all commodities following a spate of price hikes that had seen prices of basic goods rising by more than 500% within three weeks.
Soldiers and police have raided several shops in Harare to force owners to lower prices.
Over 1 300 people have been arrested during the crackdown and the figure is set to rise as the police intensify the crackdown on businesses defying the order to reduce prices.
The price cuts have seen goods such as bread, cement and fuel vanishing from shop shelves only to resurface on the black market.
Perfectly aware
Political and economic analysts said the freeze and President Robert Mugabe’s threats to nationalise companies including foreign mines accused of sabotaging the economy were part of his wider drive to win the 2008 general elections.
”I cannot see how he can let go because this whole thing is about elections,” said Eldred Masunungure, a political science professor at the University of Zimbabwe.
”This is Mugabe’s response to the notion that he is going to be driven out [of power] by the economy,” he said.
”I think he is perfectly aware of the consequences of his actions, their impact on the economy, but in his calculations, if this is going to ease political pressure on his government, then it is worth it,” he said.
The veteran Zimbabwean leader has warned he will not be restrained by ”bookish economics”, leaving him unpredictable but typically combative.
Mugabe has faced international condemnation over a crackdown on opponents in March which left opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai injured in hospital after police stopped a banned prayer rally called to protest the deepening economic crisis.
The drive against Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has severely crippled the opposition in its urban strongholds ahead of the 2008 vote, and Masunungure believes Mugabe’s threats to nationalise businesses will scare off companies and individuals who privately back the MDC.
”For Mugabe, this is total war, and he is saying those who stand in my path will stand to lose a lot, and those who stand with me will stand to gain here and there, from his patronage,” Masunungure said.
John Robertson, a leading economic commentator, said Zimbabwe was in for more pain from Mugabe’s populist policies after his seizures of white-owned farms for redistribution to inexperienced black farmers turned the country from a regional bread basket to a food importer.
”I think almost everyone accepts that what is going on is going to go on until the elections … but the economy and the country is going to pay a very heavy price for this,” he said.
How long can it go on?
The latest crisis has sparked a new round of speculation that Mugabe has reached his endgame and that any severe shortage of fuel and basic foodstuffs in the coming weeks would bring more pressure on government.
But analysts have stopped short of how Mugabe would be forced out after he snuffed what he called attempts by the opposition to organise mass protests to drive him from power in March.
South Africa’s Sunday Independent quoted unidentified sources as saying the Southern African Development Community (SADC) was working on a plan to use South Africa’s rand to help stabilise Zimbabwe’s plunging dollar, although economists say this would only work if it is accompanied by a whole package of economic reforms.
Mugabe, meanwhile, has squeezed support from his Zanu-PF party to extend his rule over Zimbabwe, which along with punishing inflation also is burdened with soaring joblessness at about 80% and regular food and fuel shortages.
A day after Zimbabwe fined dozens of company executives for defying the price freeze, Mugabe’s information minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu warned that the state’s crack units — made up of military, police, intelligence and civilian monitors — would continue to patrol.
Ndlovu, reflecting Mugabe’s defiant mood, said critics of the government’s latest drive were enemies who wanted to see the government fall under the weight of economic collapse.
”Zimbabwe’s detractors will as before, be put to shame,” he said. – Sapa, Reuters