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Mugabe hides inflation behind bare shelves
Jan Raath, The Times (UK)
November 28, 2007

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article2957238.ece

Zimbabwe can no longer calculate the rate of inflation because there are not enough goods left in the shops to allow price comparisons, the Central Statistical Office claimed yesterday. Moffat Nyoni, the Director of the CSO, said that it had been impossible to compile reliable data for the past month because of "the unavailability of required information such as prices of goods, due to their shortage on the formal market". According to leaked figures, the annual inflation rate in October stood at 14,840 per cent - almost double the 8,000 per cent in the previous month. The CSO usually publishes its statistics in the middle of the month, and its failure to do so this month led to allegations that they had been deliberately suppressed. Each passing month's figures openly contradict the Government's constantly trumpeted claim that it is beating inflation.

But Moffat Nyoni, the director of the CSO, said inflation in Zimbabwe could no longer be measured, because there were not enough goods in the shops. "There are too many data gaps," Mr Nyoni said. "We went to too many shops to observe and so compilations have not been completed. Some of the goods used in the inflation basket were not available in the shops." Goods have been scarce since July, when businesses were forced to slash their prices to well under what it cost to buy or produce them. President Mugabe hoped that the strategy would beat inflation, which he believes is a plot by businesses in collusion with Western governments to create economic chaos that would lead to open revolt and bring about his overthrow. Thousands of businessmen were arrested for "overcharging". Shops that refused to lower their prices were raided by soldiers, police, state secret agents and often price inspectors in an orgy of legalised looting.

Not many are convinced by Mr Nyoni's explanation, however. Twice this year the Government has stopped or delayed publication of CSO figures. "Its professional organisation and its figures are internationally audited," said a business executive who asked not to be named. "Professional people are being made to lie by the Government because the data is so scary. We have a government that would prefer to change the data than change the reality." Harare shopping centres were crowded yesterday but most people were anxiously waiting to draw money from banks, which now allow individual customers Z$10 million and companies double that. Few had stocks of cash, and most could serve customers only when someone came in to make a deposit. In supermarkets people wandered past half-empty shelves that for months have rarely offered even basic necessities.

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