Zimbabwe’s government has reopened dozens of private slaughter houses to try to end severe meat shortages after it slashed consumer prices and assumed temporary responsibility for meat sales.
Zimbabwe state media said on Tuesday that Industry and International Trade Minister Obert Mpofu had re-registered 42 private abattoirs — whose licences were cancelled five weeks ago — to try to ease beef shortages in the country.
President Robert Mugabe ordered that prices for a wide range of foodstuffs and consumer items be cut by half in June, accusing businesses of raising prices as part of an effort by Western opponents to overthrow his 27-year-old government.
Critics accuse Mugabe of plunging the Southern African state into an acute economic crisis marked by chronic food, fuel and foreign currency shortages, and the world’s highest inflation rate of more than 4 500%.
The government had transferred all beef-supply businesses to the state-owned Cold Storage Company, but it has been struggling to meet demand for meat.
”In an effort to improve the supply of beef on the market, the taskforce has with immediate effect approved the re-registration of the private abattoirs,” the Herald daily quoted Mpofu as saying.
But Mpofu said the re-registered slaughter houses were expected to sell meat at government-approved prices while hundreds of other abattoirs whose licences were cancelled could seek permission from the government to re-open.
Mugabe’s forced price cuts have sparked a wave of panic-buying around the country, leaving many urban shops empty of basic goods that were already in short supply as a result of the country’s eight-year recession.
More than 7 500 business people have been arrested and fined for breaching the price controls, which analysts say have worsened Zimbabwe’s economic crisis.
Businesses say they have incurred heavy losses in the price blitz and are unable to restock shops with basic goods.
Mugabe (83), in power since independence in 1980, says Western powers have enlisted the opposition and businesses in a plot to oust him for his seizure of white-owned farms for redistribution to landless black Zimbabweans. — Reuters