Zimbabwe’s Price Controls are an Election Gimmick July 9, 2007
Posted by Webmaster in Abuse of Power, Africa, Banking & Monetary Policy.comments closed
More than 1,300 shop owners and business managers have been arrested in Zimbabwe as part of a crackdown on firms accused of flouting government-imposed price controls, police said Monday.
Most of the 1,328 bosses had been fined but the number also includes 33 company executives arrested since Friday who will now appear in court, said police spokesman Chief Superintendent Oliver Mandipaka.
(snip)
“We will continue to arrest anyone who will defy the government imposed controls on basic food comodities. We will not stop until there is order in the business community,” he said.
On Saturday opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai called the price controls and subsequent crackdown “crooked economics” and “an election gimmick” ahead of parliamentary and presidential polls due to be held next year.
That’s what they are. But if they don’t work for the purpose, Mugabe can resort to what he has done in the past to steal elections — murder and terrorize his political opposition, and do the same to likely voters for the opposition.
