1 300 shop owners held in Zim
09/07/2007 09:16  - (SA)  

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Zimbabwe Special Report  Latest Zimbabwe Stories

Harare - Zimbabwean police have arrested more than 1 300 shop owners and business executives for defying the government's orders to reduce prices, say reports.

President Robert Mugabe's government, concerned by rocketing prices that could trigger social unrest, had ordered shops and businesses to reduce their prices to levels used on June 18, or face arrest.

Last week, price inspectors accompanied by teams of police began visiting shops countrywide ordering prices down, sometimes by as much as half under a police blitz dubbed Operation Reduce Prices.

Police spokesperson Oliver Mandipaka said that since the inception of Operation Reduce Prices, police crack teams - operating in conjunction with other government units - had arrested 1 328 shop owners.

Cops threaten to extend blitz

He said that those arrested included company directors, general managers and sales managers.

Some of them were due to appear in court on Monday facing charges that included failing to comply with the government directive to reduce prices to June 18 levels, failure to display prices and hoarding of goods.

Meanwhile, police had threatened to extend their blitz to pharmacies, hardware stores and Harare's flea markets - informal marketplaces that many city dwellers relied on to buy cheap clothes, shoes and electronic goods.

In a move likely to precipitate a fuel crisis, the price inspectors ordered service stations in Harare to reduce the price of a litre of diesel and petrol from about Z$200 000 to between Z$55 000 and Z$60 000.

The new price was worth around $0.34 a litre, which was way below the selling price for fuel in the region. In neighbouring Mozambique, petrol sells for nearly $1.50 a litre.

Mugabe said the price hikes were part of an imperialist plot to unseat the government.

But retailers and manufacturers said their high prices were justified amid an economic crisis marked by acute shortages of fuel, power and foreign currency and inflation of more than 4 500%.

Sapa-dpa

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