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Zim price blitz 'here to stay'
10/07/2007 11:45 - (SA)
Harare - President Robert Mugabe's government has no intention of stopping its blitz on price hikers, says a cabinet minister.
Information minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said Zimbabweans had welcomed the blitz on stores and supermarkets, which had seen prices halved and the arrests of more than 1 300 people for charging too much.
Ndlovu said: "Government is serious about price monitoring and there is no going back. The Zimbabwean people have welcomed these measures that the government has taken in defence of peoples livelihoods."
Police in the southern African country launched Operation Reduce Prices last week, ordering store managers to immediately slash prices.
The move followed accusations from the government that businesses were colluding with the west in a bid to bring about regime change in crisis-ridden Zimbabwe.
Stores are fast emptying
Shoppers stampeded to stores to pick up bargains as executives were arrested - in some cases allegedly after being beaten - and taken away.
Zimbabwe's main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai had predicted that the operation would bring serious chaos to the country. Already stores in major towns were fast emptying.
In the city of Harare, fuel stations appeared to have run dry after the government ordered them to sell fuel at a knock-down rate of about Z$60 000 a litre (about $240).
Some companies had been selling their employees fuel at a subsidized rate of Z$190 000 a litre. Fuel prices were as high as Z$300 000 a litre on the black market at the weekend.
According to witnesses, in the eastern border town of Mutare, butcheries had closed and meat freezers in supermarkets were totally empty. Only tiny quantities of bread were being baked on Monday and long queues formed both in and outside stores.
But the minister claimed that sanity was now beginning to prevail in the economy. He said Zimbabwe's detractors would as before be put to shame, adding that predictions of collapse of government were unfounded and should be scoffed at.
Sapa-dpa
- SAPA
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