Zim to INTENSIFY Mugabenomics price blitz

Harare - Zimbabwe is set to intensify its pricing blitz after leaders of the ruling party declared the crackdown had so far yielded impressive results, state media reported on Tuesday.

Nathan Shamuyarira, Zanu-PF's secretary for information and publicity, said a meeting of the party's politburo on Monday, chaired by President Robert Mugabe, had decided to extend the three-week old Operation Dzikiza (Operation Reduced Prices) as it had already shown to have brought prices down.

"We got a full report from the ministerial taskforce and the politburo was very impressed that prices were coming down," Shamuyarira was quoted as saying on the website of the state-run Herald newspaper.

"The politburo came up with a number of measures to tighten and intensify the process and these will be tabled before the central committee tomorrow (Tuesday). But we were quite impressed with the process."

The central committee's recommendations will then be "implemented by the relevant arms of government", said the Herald without giving further details.

Retailers and manufacturers, grappling to cope with an inflation rate now believed to be well over 5 000 percent, had been raising their prices several times a day until the government ordered prices to be cut in half on June 26.

About 3 000 retailers and manufacturers have been subsequently arrested for violating the edict, most of whom have been slapped with fines.

Manufacturers have said the government-imposed prices mean they are unable to cover their costs and stores are fast running out of supplies, although the black market is prospering as a result.

URL: http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click...

Date Posted: Thursday 19-Jul-2007
Price blitz a success? Relatives tell me gangs of Zanu heavies walk into shops and announce what they will pay for goods. The choice is yours; sell or be arrested and turfed out. In Bulawayo, the Ascot branch of Thomas Meikle has shut it's doors. It has nothing left to sell. Even if TM's could afford to buy more foreign goods, what would be the point when something costs you 5million and you have to sell it for 1million? Bulawayo it seems, is shutting down. Maybe the rest of the country will follow.

Clive Bloor
Maulden
UK