Mugabe's price cuts bring cheap TVs today, new crisis tomorrow
Police and Zanu-PF lead bargain hunt after officials order shops to act
Chris McGreal in Harare
Monday July 16, 2007
The Guardian
The enforced cuts means many Zimbabwean shops have run out of stock and are unable to reorder because official retail prices are below wholesale costs. Photograph: Bishop Asare/EPA
Zimbabweans are shopping like there's no tomorrow. With police patrolling the aisles of Harare's electrical shops to enforce massive government-ordered price cuts, the widescreen TVs were the first things to go, for as little as £20. Across the country, shoes, clothes, toiletries and different kinds of food were all swept from the shelves as a nation with the world's fastest shrinking economy gorged itself on one last spending spree.
Car dealers said officials were trying to force them to sell vehicles at the official exchange rate, effectively meaning that a car costing £15,000 could be had for £30 by changing money on the blackmarket. The owners of several dealerships have been arrested.
Police and Zanu-PF lead bargain hunt after officials order shops to act
Chris McGreal in Harare
Monday July 16, 2007
The Guardian
The enforced cuts means many Zimbabwean shops have run out of stock and are unable to reorder because official retail prices are below wholesale costs. Photograph: Bishop Asare/EPA
Zimbabweans are shopping like there's no tomorrow. With police patrolling the aisles of Harare's electrical shops to enforce massive government-ordered price cuts, the widescreen TVs were the first things to go, for as little as £20. Across the country, shoes, clothes, toiletries and different kinds of food were all swept from the shelves as a nation with the world's fastest shrinking economy gorged itself on one last spending spree.
Car dealers said officials were trying to force them to sell vehicles at the official exchange rate, effectively meaning that a car costing £15,000 could be had for £30 by changing money on the blackmarket. The owners of several dealerships have been arrested.