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Mugabe's price controls are a gimmick - Tsvangirai

Mugabe's price controls are a gimmick - Tsvangirai
By Kingsley Kaswende in Harare
Tuesday July 10, 2007 [04:00]

ZIMBABWE’S opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has said President Robert Mugabe’s order for price controls is a gimmick aimed at gaining political mileage ahead of next year’s elections. And Tsvangirai has said President Mugabe’s government risks destroying the economy further by nationalising all public companies. Speaking at his first rally since February this year when rallies were banned in Harare’s four districts, Tsvangirai said he could not comprehend why the government only realised that late that things were bad in the economy.

“This is a political gimmick for the elections. The unilateral action by the government to slash prices without regard to economic fundamentals will have a long-term effect on people’s lives. It is the poor people who will suffer in the end because the goods will not be available. It is an action that is intended to benefit them politically in the short term but in the long term, it’s the people who will suffer because there will be no goods and services in the shops,” Tsvangirai told MDC supporters in Dzivaresekwa, west of Harare.

“There are no prices being cut because you can’t cut prices when the goods are not available. It will be the poor people who will suffer because they will end up buying from the black market where things are more expensive.”

The pricing of all goods and services in Zimbabwe has been brought under firm government control over what it terms ‘excessive profiteering’ and exploitation of consumers by traders. All traders have been told to cut prices by half and to prices as at June 18, 2007.

Prices of commodities shot up by up to 300 per cent in two weeks after June 18 as the Zimbabwean dollar succumbed to pressure against major convertible currencies. Most traders peg their prices on the illegal black market rate, which has been spiralling in the recent past. Tsvangirai charged that the Zimbabwean government was running the economy by guesswork.

“Today, because of the forthcoming elections, they have started again. They say cut prices, cut prices, cut prices… Ask Mugabe this, where have you been and why has it taken you so late to realise that things are bad?” he said.

“The people who are enforcing the price controls are soldiers and police, what do they know about the economy? Let them do their professional roles, not politics.”

He said for 30 years ZANU-PF was out to defend its power.

“If you consider the fast track land reforms, there was nothing else left for ZANU-PF because they had lost the referendum so the only thing remaining was to crush the farm worker’s vote. The white people were just collateral damage,” he said.

“If you consider operation Murambatsvina (shanty clean-up exercise) it was a punishment for urban people because you voted for MDC.”

Tsvangirai said the indigenisation bill, which seeks to nationalise all public companies, would destroy the economy further. The bill was gazetted last month and is awaiting parliamentary debate later this month.

“They have brought another story that they will take over the companies. They want to destroy the companies the way they did with the farms. This means for all of you in urban areas there will be no jobs. Yet what we want in Zimbabwe is more jobs and better life for all the people,” he said.

And Tsvangirai said the MDC would not participate in next year’s elections if they would be the same ritual. He said as long as MDC’s concerns were not addressed, the opposition would not participate.

“We will reject an election that is just a ritual. For us, the only solution to this mess is to go for the negotiations but the negotiations must have conditions for us to go into next year’s elections.

Among MDC’s concerns are that the Public Order and Security Act (POSA) must be done away with; that all elections in Zimbabwe must not be run by state security agencies (the military, police and central intelligence organisation); that every person with a right to vote, including those in the diaspora, must vote; and that the opposition must have access to the media.

Labels: MORGAN TSVANGIRAI, MUGABE, ZIMBABWE

posted by MrK @ 4:09 AM