Mugabe Orders Firms to Reduce Prices to February 12 Level Or Else

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe has ordered companies to reduce prices of all commodities to February 12 levels and threatened to nationalize foreign-owned firms caught on the wrong side of the law.

The veteran Zimbabwean leader said he would read the riot act on Tuesday when he meets with business leaders in the capital, Harare.

He told his ruling party supporters that business should revert to price levels that obtained when the government awarded hefty salary increases to civil servants on 12 February.

Stung by a spate of price increases in the past month, the Zimbabwean government has repeatedly accused businesses of working with the opposition and Western countries to push it out of power.

Mugabe said the latest round of price increases was meant to cause an uprising among civil servants by eroding their buying power a few days after they were awarded salary increases.

He warned that a controversial economic empowerment law passed this month would be tested on any foreign firms that ignore the price freeze.

The Zimbabwe Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act, signed into law by Mugabe early this month, allows the government to set aside a 51 percent stake in foreign-owned companies for local investors.

The law is expected to affect about 400 British companies and several others from South Africa and the United States that operate in the country.

Source African Press Agency

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