Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader said on Wednesday a government price freeze was unsustainable and had left inflation-battered consumers worse off.
Zimbabweans have struggled to buy basic commodities since President Robert Mugabe’s government ordered businesses to cut their prices to mid-June levels in a bid to rein in inflation that is running close to 5 000%.
The move, enforced by police in the past month, has prompted many businesses to shut their doors or stop stocking goods.
”It is evident that this price blitz has failed and is unsustainable,” Morgan Tsvangirai, who heads the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), told reporters after touring shops in the capital, Harare. Many of the shops had bare shelves.
”The people are worse off than they were before … it is evident basic commodities are no longer available,” he said. Tsvangirai, a former trade union leader who lost to Mugabe in a disputed 2002 presidential election, was mobbed by shoppers.
Residents in one opposition stronghold chanted MDC slogans and spoke of their inability to find food.
”All we find in the shops are biscuits and salt, not bread and meat. What are we supposed to do with that?” one resident asked Tsvangirai, who was accompanied by opposition legislators.
Mugabe has defended the price freeze, which has led to more than 6 000 business people and companies being arrested and fined for overcharging, as necessary to protect consumers from the daily price hikes.
The 83-year-old leader, who has been in power since Zimbabwe’s independence from Britain in 1980, has accused some businesses of pushing through unjustified price increases as part of a wider foreign-backed plot to oust him.
Zimbabwe’s government frequently blames economic problems on sabotage by Britain and its allies, whom it says are angry over the seizure of thousands of white-owned commercial farms.
The International Monetary Fund predicted on Tuesday that Zimbabwe’s inflation rate could top 100 000% by the end of 2007.
Economic analysts say most businesses are in a position of having to choose between cutting production, operating at a loss or closing down altogether. A thriving black market has replaced regular commerce in many parts of the nation.
”The government has to be responsible for the mess they’ve created … this crisis has been authored by Zanu-PF and Mugabe,” Tsvangirai said.
”Unless the productive sectors are allowed to produce goods and services, the situation is going to get worse.” — Reuters