Inflation in Zimbabwe Hits 3,714 Percent
May 17 02:20 PM US/Eastern
By ANGUS SHAW
Associated Press Writer
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - Zimbabwe's annual inflation rate surged to an
unprecedented 3,714 percent at the end of April, the official state
newspaper reported Thursday, as the government set up a commission to
try to bring prices down to single digit levels.
Prices more than doubled last month as shown by a 100.7 percent
increase—the highest on record—in the consumer price index calculated
by the state Central Statistical Office, the Herald newspaper said. In
the past year they increased 36-fold.
The Herald said that President Robert Mugabe on Monday signed into law
regulations to enforce wage and price controls through "comprehensive
price surveys and inspections," with a penalty of up to five years in
jail for violators. The ultimate aim would be to bring inflation into
single digits.
In recent years, the government has tried to freeze prices for corn
meal, bread, cooking oil, meat, school fees and transport costs with
little success. Socialist-style controls have driven a thriving black
market in scarce commodities.
Sugar, unavailable in regular stores for weeks, fetches at least 10
times the government's designated price at a dirty market in Harare's
impoverished western township of Mbare.
Minibus drivers, the country's main commuter transport, routinely
ignore government directives on fares, citing soaring black market
prices for gasoline. Commuters questioned at police roadblocks often
lie about the fare they paid or risk being thrown off the bus and left
stranded.
The independent Confederation of Zimbabwe Industries estimates most
factories across the country are running at around 30 percent capacity
or less, and countless businesses have shut down, fueling record
unemployment of about 80 percent.
Many consumer items have disappeared altogether, forcing supermarkets
to fill out their shelves with empty packaging behind the few goods on
display.
The worst economic crisis since independence in 1980 is blamed on
corruption, mismanagement and the often-violent seizures of thousands
of white-owned commercial farms since 2000 that disrupted the
agriculture-based economy.
Increases in the price of fuel, transportation, vegetables and meat
contributed to April's surge in the consumer price index, which was
double the increase in March of 50.3 percent, the Central Statistical
Office said, according to The Herald.
The international benchmark for hyperinflation is a 50 percent monthly
increase.
The government warned Wednesday that the price of bread is likely to
rise because only a fraction of the normal wheat crop has been
planted.
In Zimbabwe's bizarre economic meltdown, a regular can of locally made
baked beans in a supermarket now costs three times the price of the
equivalent in Europe, compared at the official exchange rate of 15,000
Zimbabwean dollars to the U.S. dollar.
The Reserve Bank last year introduced sweeping currency reforms
knocking off the final three digits—thus 250,000 Zimbabwean dollars
became 250 Zimbabwean dollars—in a vain attempt to tame inflation.
Even so, consumers are still forced to carry around huge bricks of
notes to pay for scarce supplies and basic services.
For example, a pest control service on Wednesday charged 1 million
Zimbabwean dollars to a homeowner whose house was plagued by rats that
are thriving as the country's sanitation and garbage collection
collapses.
--
There may come a time when the CO2 police will wander the earth telling
the poor and the dispossed how many dung chips they can put on their
cook fires. -- Captain Compassion.
Wherever I go it will be well with me, for it was well with me here, not
on account of the place, but of my judgments which I shall carry away
with me, for no one can deprive me of these; on the contrary, they alone
are my property, and cannot be taken away, and to possess them suffices
me wherever I am or whatever I do. -- EPICTETUS
Celibacy in healthy human beings is a form of
insanity. -- Captain Compassion
"Civilization is the interval between Ice Ages." -- Will Durant.
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMcharter.net
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