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Price Controls and Shortages - Index of articles
Mugabe
rejects business' request on prices
Augustine Mukaro, The Zimbabwe Independent
July 27, 2007
http://allafrica.com/stories/200707270584.html
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe
has rejected business' request for an immediate end to the price
blitz, one of 15 tabled at their critical meeting on Monday.
Sources privy to the
meeting between Mugabe and business executives said four of the
demands, including the immediate stoppage of the current crackdown
which left shops empty, were thrown out at the onset.
Instead Mugabe opted
for a gradual process whilst government closely monitors compliance
with other proposals to secure economic recovery. The executives
are said to have used Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono to secure
a meeting with Mugabe. Gono is close to Mugabe and has opposed the
price blitz as detrimental to business.
"Gono was part of
the business executives who came up with the proposals," one
executive said. "The draft was actually done at the RBZ with
the input from business representatives."
The executive however
said Mugabe promised to take on board most of the proposals but
insisted that business must cooperate with government on its policies.
At least 3 000 executives
and managers have been arrested and fined in the clampdown for flouting
price control regulations. Most of those arrested were briefly detained
in filthy police cells.
Mugabe this week said
the price controls will remain in place because there was a lot
of profiteering by business seeking regime change.
Government last month
directed businesses to slash prices by 50%, a development that has
caused acute shortages of many basic goods. Most supermarkets and
shops are now virtually empty and ordinary people are worse off
because of the shortages.
Mugabe justified
the controversial Operation Dzikisa Mitengo (Operation Reduce Prices)
as a response to attempts to topple his government.
"The inexplicable
price and rent hikes which were apparently welcomed and encouraged
by our regime-change proponents compounded the situation further
and thus invited government intervention," Mugabe told MPs.
He said the government
was committed to its programme to restore price stability. However,
the blitz has created a more serious situation of widespread shortages
compared to what was happening prior to the campaign where goods
were available but very expensive. Now they are cheap, but unavailable.
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