Mugabe presses ahead while inflation builds

South East Asia News.Net
Wednesday 26th March, 2008

President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has chosen a campaign meeting to rail against his country’s business community.

A campaign rally in Hwange provided the setting for Mugabe to blame supermarkets and manufacturers for high prices in the shops.

Speaking to a small crowd, Mugabe said his government wanted prices reduced to their February 12th levels, when teachers and other civil servants were awarded pay increases.

President Mugabe has sought to give the impression that private companies are trying to force him out of power by increasing prices and stirring up resentment.

At the Hwange meeting, he said: “We are going to read the riot act to them. We are going to use the Indigenisation and Empowerment Act”.

Under that Act companies are forced to reserve at least 51 per cent of shares for indigenous people.

Economic analysts have blamed the government's ballooning domestic debt for driving up prices.

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