Hundreds more arrested as police setup roadblocks in price war

By Tererai Karimakwenda
July 11, 2007

The police on Tuesday accused businesses of moving their goods to rural areas to avoid reducing prices and in response, roadblocks are reported to have appeared everywhere. Police spokesperson Oliver Mandipaka told state radio that the roadblocks had been setup to block the movement of goods to rural areas and also prevent farmers from moving maize to urban areas.

But our contacts say they are raiding minibuses and impounding vehicles, accused of overcharging. From Bulawayo our contact Zenzele said there is a serious shortage of transport and people carrying others to ease the problem are being arrested and their vehicles impounded for not having licenses. As it is in Harare, Zenzele said a petrol station owned by Abednico Bhebhe was raided by police who insisted the fuel be sold for Z$60,000 per litre. But Bhebhe had been selling it at Z$150,000 a litre on the base date when prices were frozen. Zenzele reports that Bhebhe lost at least Z$3.8 billion.

Police spokesperson Mandipaka also announced that hundreds more business executives and managers had been arrested as the government continued enforcing the new law freezing the prices of basic commodities. He said a further 468 violators had been arrested countrywide in the last 24 hours. This brings the total to 1 768 since June 26th when the original price reduction order was effected. The police said they had beefed up their price monitoring team and there would be more police in the central business district and other residential area.

Meanwhile shops have mostly run out of stock and our sources say there is no cooking oil, sugar, soap and many other basic commodities. There is also a serious shortage of bread since bakers were ordered to reduce the price of a loaf to Z$22 000, when it costs them at least Z$35 000 to produce it. Public transport has all but disappeared as operators resort to parking their vehicles rather spend days in petrol queues, then lose money charging less than it costs them to buy fuel.

The news comes just days after government published a new law that freezes prices and requires businesses to apply for permission before changing them. Failure to comply could lead to the businesses being nationalised and to owners and directors being charged in their personal capacities.

On Wednesday lawyer Sternford Moyo questioned the legality of the law ordering price freezes, saying he had not seen it published in any regular government gazette or any extraordinary gazette. The law suddenly appeared in a government publication last Friday, but it is being used to prosecute some owners and directors who were arrested before it was published. Moyo said without being gazetted, the new law cannot be considered legally binding.