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Zim
police crack down on prohibited price hikes
Mail
& Guardian (SA)
September 19, 2006
http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=284451&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/
Police in the Zimbabwean capital, Harare,
arrested three more company executives for hiking prices without
government consent but a judge has said the police are being overzealous,
it was reported on Tuesday.
Those arrested were from fertiliser
manufacturers Windmill and Zimbabwe Fertiliser Company, and Circle
Cement, the state-controlled Herald reported.
The arrests bring to six the number
of top executives arrested for illegally hiking prices since last
Friday as President Robert Mugabe's government battles another round
of shock price increases.
Meanwhile, Harare judge Paradzai Garufu
has lambasted the police for detaining officials from a major bakery
and a plastic packaging company for more than 30 hours at the weekend,
the Herald said.
Garufu said the police were overzealous
and should not have detained Lobels Bakery operations director Lemmy
Chikomo and Saltrama Plastics managing director Edward Madza.
Madza's lawyer complained that the
arresting police officers behaved like raging bulls in a china shop,
the Herald reported.
The prices of basics like bread, milk,
maize meal, sugar and cooking oil shot up at the end of last week
as annual inflation peaked at 1 204,6%, rousing the fury of the
authorities.
Retailers and wholesalers are not allowed
to increase the price of many commodities without permission from
the Ministry of Industry and International Trade.
Some shops this week temporarily reversed
the bread-price hikes but there are now fears of bread shortages.
Bakers complain that the price of inputs has risen substantially
and they will go out of business if they are not allowed to charge
the new prices.
Surveillance teams have been deployed
countrywide to check shop prices and more arrests are expected,
said the Herald. -- Sapa-dpa
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