Zim slaps price control on food
2005-04-06 20:08
Special Report
A classical music presenter for the BBC has been arrested and is in custody in Zimbabwe.
Harare - The government of President Robert Mugabe announced new price controls of basic food commodities in Zimbabwe to combat hyper-inflation.
In a related action, the women's league of his ruling Zanu-PF party threatened to seize food manufacturing companies.
All companies producing and selling maize meal, which forms Zimbabweans staple diet, cooking oil, soft drinks, milk and sugar have to reverse recent price increases to their previous levels, the state-controlled daily Herald quoted Samuel Mumbengegwi as saying.
Mumbengegwi was trade minister before parliament was dissolved the day before the March 31 elections.
The newspaper report said the government feared that manufacturers unilaterally increased prices with the ulterior motive of making people blame the government, thereby triggering food riots.
The announcement was the government's first act since 81-year-old Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party won widely disputed parliamentary elections on Thursday last week.
Logistical problems
State price controls were effectively abandoned about two years ago when the government set them at levels less than the cost at which companies could produce them.
At the time, manufacturing stopped, resulting in critical shortages. The legislation has remained on the official statutes.
Mumbengegwi also said that shortages of maize meal was the result of "temporary logistical problems with transporting maize to milling companies, adding "everything will be back to normal" by Wednesday.
"People should not react to rumours and start panic buying," he said.
Economists have long predicted critical shortages of maize meal following the collapse of the country's once robust agricultural industry after the government backed the removal of about 4 000 white commercial farmers from their land.
Mugabe in May last year claimed that the country had produced a record maize harvest of 2.4 million tons and ordered the United Nations to halt distribution of famine relief.
Shortfall
However, agricultural experts warned that only about 800 000 tons would be harvested, less than half the amount needed to feed people.
Food-shortage organisations have said that about 5 million people are stricken by famine now for the third year in a row.
During the election campaign Mugabe toured remote areas of the country where, faced with cries of hunger, he admitted that the country did not have enough food and said it was importing grain.
Meanwhile, Nyasha Chikwinya, spokesperson for the Zanu-PF women's league, said she had sought Mugabe's approval to seize companies that were creating "artificial shortages of food".
She said current shortages were a barely-veiled protest by the manufacturers against the opposition Movement for Democratic Change's defeat in last weeks elections.
"We cannot allow this to go on any longer," she said. - Sapa-dpa
- SAPA