Zimbabwe has allowed businesses to raise the prices of some basic goods and services, slightly easing a price freeze that has left shop shelves empty and deepened an economic crisis.
President Robert Mugabe’s government had ordered a price rollback to June 18 levels in a bid to stem inflation of more than 4 500% — the highest in the world — but the move led manufacturers to cut production out of fear of losses.
The official Herald newspaper reported on Wednesday that Industry and International Trade Minister Obert Mpofu had approved price rises for some food products, farming inputs, beverages, air and commuter train fares and other items.
The government set a maximum 20% mark-up for retailers. A team of price monitors and police were still in place to ensure businesses complied, said the newspaper.
”The benchmark for all other prices of commodities not covered by review remains at June 18 2007 levels until further notice,” the Herald said.
The increases came a day after the government reopened dozens of private slaughterhouses in a bid to end severe meat shortages blamed on the price freeze.
It had cancelled the slaughterhouses’ licences five weeks ago for raising prices and refusing to supply butchers at controlled prices.
More than 7 500 business people have been arrested and fined for breaching the price controls, which analysts say have worsened the economic turmoil ravaging the country.
Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, has accused some businesses of raising prices without justification as part of what he calls a Western plot to topple him.
The forced price cuts sparked panic-buying around the country, leaving many urban shops empty of basic goods that were already in short supply as a result of an eight-year recession.
Businesses say they have suffered heavy losses in the price crackdown and are unable to restock shops.
Mugabe blames Zimbabwe’s economic problems on sabotage by Western powers which he says is punishment for his seizure of white-owned farms for redistribution to landless black Zimbabweans. — Reuters
Fair treatment
Zimbabweans fleeing the country’s worsening economic and political crisis must be treated fairly when they apply for asylum, the head of the United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday.
Only a political solution can stem the exodus of Zimbabweans to neighbouring Southern African countries, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres told Reuters.
”We know … there has been a recent meaningful influx … but the large majority are not asking for asylum, they are looking for food security and some kind of economic activity that they are not able to find in their own country,” Guterres said in an interview in the Mozambican capital, Maputo.
Aid agencies say there are more than three million displaced Zimbabweans, most of them in South Africa. Each day thousands more brave crocodile-infested rivers to sneak through the border fence to their southern neighbour, Africa’s economic powerhouse.
Several hundred migrants are caught and sent back every day, while the rest are left to fend for themselves, sometimes finding help from church or aid groups or local communities. Few embark on the lengthy process of claiming asylum.
”People asking for asylum when leaving their country should have fair treatment of their claims, and whenever [the claim is justified], should be considered as a refugee,” he said.
Guterres said the global humanitarian community had to act together to help alleviate the plight of refugees from Zimbabwe.
”Our wishes are that the situation in Zimbabwe can improve, and flows of displacements can be reduced; of course the solution of the problem is not humanitarian, it’s a political solution … we hope that the political solution is found and Zimbabwe can return to a situation of normality”. — Reuters