Zimbabwe arrests nearly 7,500 in attempt to enforce price cuts

The madness continues in Zimbabwe with Mugabe arresting over 7,000 people for failing to sell their goods at a loss since Mugabe has announced that all goods are to be sold at half price in an attempt to control Zimbabwe's hyperinflation. Zimbabwe's inflation rate is currently running at 4,500% according to official figures - making it the highest in the world - although most people assume it is actually around 9,000%.

The International Monetary Fund have speculated that the figure could be as high as 100,000% by the end of the year.

Mugabe's plan is an insane one. No shopkeepers are going to sell their goods at a loss and Mugabe seems to be unsure of how to deal with those that refuse. He has so far come up with two ploys:

A police spokesman said 7,495 people had been arrested, the state-owned Herald newspaper reported yesterday. Most were jailed briefly and fined, and some were sentenced to do community service cleaning government buildings after magistrate Olivia Mariga declared that fines alone were not proving a sufficient deterrent to profiteers.

I feel sure that the shopkeepers would rather do community service than sell off their assets at a loss, and Mugabe's second solution is no better than the first:

Mr Mugabe has threatened to seize businesses that either shut down or scale back their production.

So now he's talking about snapping up unprofitable business's and seizing them for the state. The old bugger really has well and truly lost the bloody plot. His problem will hardly be improved by the state seizing business's that can't operate under hyperinflation.

He seems not to have a clue how to tackle the inflation and, instead, thinks that he can bring it down by sheer will power alone.

Mr Mugabe said he would not back down in the campaign against what he called "price madness", which has seen prices increasing by the hour. He said the government would take action against businesses resisting the cuts. "Some are ... saying they will not supply goods and services but we say you will," he said.

This is actual madness. He is attempting to make the inflation for which his government is to blame the responsiblity of everyone else and he's throwing people into jail because they will not bankrupt themselves to bail him out.

The industry minister, Obert Mpofu, said on Sunday that new regulations were being prepared to "fine-tune" the price order and control foodstuffs brought in from neighbouring countries.

The police said executives of two of the nation's biggest dealers in building materials and hardware, Astra Building Supplies and PG Paint and Glass, were charged on Friday with defying the price freeze on taps, pickaxe handles and putty.

Two Harare store managers were arrested over the weekend for allegedly hoarding goods including matches, soap, washing powder, toothpaste and body lotions. "The arrest of the two seems to suggest that some managers are removing commodities from the shelves and hiding them to beat the system," he told the Herald.

He's got the whole thing back to front. It matters not at which price the shopkeepers buy their goods from neighbouring countries, what matters is the value of the Zimbabwean dollar at the time that the shopkeeper is attempting to sell those goods. If the Zimbabwean dollar is worth half as much then the seller is going to want twice what he paid.

Mugabe is attempting to tackle the price of goods without considering the value of the Zimbabwean dollar, making the whole exercise futile.

Zimbabwe has now officially stopped releasing inflation figures, which sort of ties in with Mugabe's entire way of addressing this problem. Ignore it or blame someone else.

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Tags: Zimbabwe, Mugabe, hyper-inflation