President Emmerson Mnangagwa has said that it was now time to take action against errant business whom he accuses of increasing prices willy-nilly.
Speaking to rural councillors at the first edition of the Rural District Councilors (RDC) meeting in Harare on Thursday. the president said that the government is going to use it to stop the price hikes. He said:
Some retailers are changing prices almost overnight on the same stock. There should be nothing like that. We warned them for a long time and we are now in a position to act.
We are not going to watch and look at them doing what they are doing. We have the whip and government is going to use it to stop the price hikes.
He speaks when inflation in the country has for the past 24 months been going up with businesses citing a number of push factors including fuel prices, scarcity of inputs, scarcity of foreign currency, power cuts and fluctuating exchange rates which directly or indirectly increase the cost of production.
The soaring inflation has eroded salaries of workers sectors resulting in them, particularly health workers and teachers embarking on industrial action saying they are now incapacitated to execute their duties and responsibilities.
More: Zim Morning Post
Iri ndiro benzi remunhu manje iri, if you do that and they close shop then what, more unemployed people ka and more poverty, thought akadzidzawo from Mugabe in 2008, zvinhu zvinongopera mushop totangira ipapo
I think good leadership is also about acknowledging mistakes so that there will be commitment to avoid repeating such mistakes. ED’s administration clearly set itself up for failure by lying to themselves that the bond could be equated to the $US – the business said find, let’s now operate on that understanding, and here are the results! My view is business is pro-opposition, but ED gave business the ammunition to do what they are doing now. I think for now, ED might have won the election, but the economy and the opposition sympathisers have cornered him. He just have to talk to Adv Chamisa on how to at least contain the situation. The MDC A, with the backing of business, have achieved a very big victory not in reversing the election result, but in causing chaos in the economy, and this now needs ED’s magnanimity in accepting a transitional authority arrangement, just to stabilise the economy.
I do not doubt that some inscrupluos businesses are taking advantage of the situation. The mess we’re in was created by the government and of necessity retailers are having to adjust prices with eacnh new stock. Anmd if the government does take action, will businesses owned by party members be included wholly or tokenly and those would be the small fry.
Isn’t zanu the biggest errant busines and his family cousins and their army private police/ malitia who have been profiteering From the chaos they have deliberately created to uphold authotarian power