Zimbabwe Arrests Shopkeepers for Not Lowering Prices

More than 1,300 businesses have been charged and fined in Zimbabwe in the last fortnight for refusing to obey orders that required them to slash prices by 50%. Those not so charged have faced fines for hording goods. Best of all, 33 top businessmen have been arrested. President Robert Mugabe seems to think that market forces will move because he says so. Instead, he will find that there will be nothing on sale in the shops, and when the army can no longer buy anything with its pay, the end will at last be in sight.

In his own words, Mr. Mugabe explained his policy, “This is no joke ... there are some people who think this will not succeed because they say there are empty shelves. We are saying to all factory owners you must produce. If you don't produce we certainly will seize the factories.” He announced the revival of the State Trading Corp. to run government-owned businesses. This is laughable because the STC collapsed in the 1980s because it couldn’t run businesses effectively.

Officially, inflation is running at 4,500% per year. According to independent financial institutions, the true inflation rate could be double that official rate (and one has even suggested it's 19,000%). In other words, the government says a good that sold for Z$1 on January 1, 2007 will cost Z$45 by December 31, 2007. The government has confessed to running the printing presses to meet payroll for government workers (all of whom are members of the ruling ZANU-PF party). This prevents it from pegging its currency to South Africa’s rand, which would at least end the pressure on the local unit. Inflation is one thing, but when added to 80% unemployment, life is untenable long term.

President Mugabe continues to believe that the economic troubles of the nation are the result of a Western conspiracy to remove him from power. Would that it were so. Instead, they stem from a megalomaniac’s desire to retain power by rewarding friends at the cost of competence. This is not just the opinion of this journal; Roman Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo said, “Mugabe is a man who is a megalomaniac. He loves power, he lives for power. Even his own party are pleading with him, ‘Please stand down, you've done enough good’.”

It is clear that the broader world doesn’t care whether Zimbabweans live or die. It neighbors are worried but unwilling to act through some misguided sense of African solidarity (their solidarity should be with the people, not the government). The internal opposition led by the Movement for Democratic Change is divided between followers of founder Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, who opposed participating in the latest sham election, and followers of Welshman Ncube and Gibson Sibanda, who favored participating to make them less of a sham. Until these groups end their bickering, Mr. Mugabe has an easy ride. The main question now is whether there is a single patriot in the Zimbabwean armed forces prepared to put country above all else and tell Mr. Mugabe to find someplace to live in exile, or else.

© Copyright 2007 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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