At least 7 600 shop managers and business executives in Zimbabwe have been arrested in a crackdown on businesses accused of profiteering, police said Monday, as President Robert Mugabe vowed to continue the blitz.
”The latest update is that 7 660 people have been arrested countrywide since we started the operation and 601 have been convicted by magistrates’ courts,” police spokesperson Oliver Mandipaka said.
”The majority of them were released after paying admission of guilt fines while some cases are pending before the courts.
”We are saying to businesses, compliance is the only option because this operation is going on with more determination than before because we have noticed overcharging is still rampant,” he said.
Mugabe said the government would not relent on the six-week-old blitz.
”Some are resisting, saying they will not supply goods and services, but we say you will,” the state-run Herald newspaper quoted Mugabe as telling Zimbabwean students in Langkawi, Malaysia, where he is attending the Langkawi International Dialogue.
In June, Zimbabwe Industry Minister Obert Mpofu ordered businesses to halve the prices of their goods and services, claiming some businesses were colluding with veteran Mugabe’s foes in the West to plot his downfall.
The government deployed teams from the security forces and the price-monitoring commission to ensure compliance.
Retailers and manufacturers, grappling to cope with an inflation rate now believed to be well over 5 000%, have been raising their prices several times a day.
Manufacturers have said that the government-imposed prices mean they are unable to cover their costs and stores are fast running out of supplies, while the black market is booming as a result.
‘Misleading’
Meanwhile, Mugabe criticised what he called unfair media reports aimed at muddying the image of developing countries, as Asian and African leaders held talks on Monday on fighting poverty.
Mugabe, whose country is grappling with a financial crisis that he blames partly on Western economic sanctions, used a dialogue session with media representatives at the Langkawi International Dialogue in Malaysia to slam news reports that are ”quite often deliberately intended to tarnish and mislead”.
”Should our journalists really indulge in what they know to be deliberately misleading stories, and therefore stories that go against objectivity and the truth?” Mugabe asked, without singling out any news organisation.
Zimbabwe is confronting an economic meltdown that has spurred the International Monetary Fund to warn that the country’s inflation rate may hit 100 000% by the end of the year. The World Food Program appealed last week for funds to help more than 3,3-million Zimbabweans — over a quarter of the population — suffering severe food shortages.
Mugabe, a frequent critic of the West, is among about 500 government and corporate leaders from about 20 mostly developing countries attending an anti-poverty conference on Malaysia’s northern Langkawi Island. — Sapa-AFP, AP