Mass arrests of wholesalers and retailers in Bulawayo
 
By Tererai Karimakwenda
 19 October 2006

A team of unidentified agents is reported to have arrested the managers of most major wholesale and retail outlets in Bulawayo, beginning Wednesday morning. Managers from large chains including TM, OK, Makro, Trade-all and Jaggers are in police detention at stations around the city. Bulawayo businessman Eddie Cross said they have not been charged and no reasons have been given for their detention. He added that business in the city was “very subdued” as of Thursday afternoon and Bulawayo residents are angry over this action.

Cross said the agents have refused to explain what office authorized the arrests. They simply showed up at these major outlets looking for illegal activity and refused to accept any explanations, however valid. Cross gave us Trade-all as an example. He said they are probably the biggest wholesaler in the country stocking at least Z$200 million worth of product at any given time. As such the thousands of items they sell are bar-coded on a computerized pricing system. There are no price tags. The lack of price tags was the reason given to arrest the manager.

At another business the manager was arrested because a stock of sugar had already been sold and was waiting to be picked up, without price tags. Cross said the managers from almost every major wholesaler and retailer in Bulawayo were in jail by Thursday morning. He believes the arrests were centered on Bulawayo as he had not received reports from anywhere else.

Asked whether the agents had targeted any particular racial group, Cross said the managers at this level are almost all black. He did not believe race was an issue and neither was gender. One of the managers in custody is a woman manager from Makro.