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Zim tycoons to clean buildings
02/08/2007 20:51 - (SA)
Angus Shaw
Harare - Six Zimbabwean businessmen were sentenced to 105 hours of community service by a magistrate who noted that fines have not ensured government orders to cut prices were obeyed, a state-owned newspaper reported on Thursday.
Magistrate Olivia Mariga's order that the businessmen clean government buildings was the first sentence to community service in the prices clampdown.
At least 5 000 people, from top corporate directors to street vendors, have been arrested as police and price inspectors enforced the June 26 order to cut prices of all goods and services by about 50%. Most of those arrested have been fined and quickly released.
An insurance company has been advertising on state television offering "directors and officers liability cover" against arrest, with fees based on the level of risk companies faced.
After Wednesday's court session before Magistrate Mariga, two of the businessmen were overheard "asking court officials if it was possible for them to hire other people to carry out the community service on their behalf," the Herald newspaper reported.
Hearses picking up commuters
Zimbabwe is in its worst economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1980, blamed largely on disruptions in the agriculture-based economy in the former regional breadbasket after the often violent, government-ordered seizures of thousands of white-owned commercial farms began in 2000.
The price cuts, meant to tame official inflation of 4 500%, have left many shelves across the country bare of corn meal, bread, meat, eggs, milk and other staples, with retailers arguing they cannot afford to sell goods for less than they cost.
Many minibus taxi drivers, who provide the main means of commuter transport and were ordered to cut fares, were staying off the roads because they cannot afford or find fuel.
A trip to town from Harare's township suburbs that should take 30 minutes now takes up to five hours, most spent waiting, trying to flag down passing drivers and scrambling onto vehicles that stop. Hitching rides in Zimbabwe normally involves payment to the driver.
Funeral parlours have even put hearses to work picking up commuters. Police in the second city of Bulawayo hailed the move as a "public service" but said the drivers of hearses, trucks and other vehicles should not overload, state radio said on Thursday.
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