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Zimbabwe: Police Station Turns Into 'People's Shop'
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Zimbabwe Standard (Harare)
5 July 2008
Posted to the web 7 July 2008
Rutendo Mawere
GWERU Central Police Station was turned into a retail shop on Monday as hundreds of desperate consumers besieged the station to buy basic commodities.
Baton-wielding police beat up and dispersed dozens of desperate people who had besieged the police station to buy scarce commodities that police put up for sale after they had confiscated them from retail shops that were reportedly overcharging.
Hundreds of consumers started gathering outside the police station around mid-morning after they heard that sugar and cooking oil would be on sale. The police initially sold a 2kg packet of sugar at $600 million dollars, then raised it to $25 billion.
Cooking oil was selling at $2-billion for two litres. However, the current price of a 2kg packet of sugar is $30 billion, while that of a two-litre bottle of cooking oil is $150 billion. Consumers who spoke to The Standard accused the police of raising the prices after they had helped themselves.
One of the consumers, who only identified himself as Banda told The Standard: "They have raised the price of sugar to $25 billion for a 2kg but most of the police officers bought the sugar at $600 million a packet."
Some of the people who formed long and winding queues outside the police station were able to buy some of the commodities before chaos broke out around 4pm as some of the people started jostling for a chance to buy.
The police beat up people in order to disperse them, and then later closed the station's gates. Some of the police officers, speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed to The Standard that while consumers were told that the commodities were sold out, several tonnes of the confiscated goods were still at the station, and some people did not disperse, hoping they would get a chance to buy some of the scarce goods.
On Tuesday more people turned up at the station nicknaming it "the people's shop", again hoping to buy what had been left over from Monday but the gates remained closed with reports that there would no longer be anything for sale. Scores of people spent the whole day milling around the station desperately hoping to be among the first in the queues if anything came up. But they returned home empty-handed. However, The Standard observed that several Mahindra brand vehicles visited the station, with the visitors coming out with cartons of sugar.
Police in Gweru have also forced bakeries and retail shops to sell bread for $3 billion -- resulting in resurfacing of bread queues and shortages of the commodity. Most consumers complained that shop attendants had started displaying favouritism by selling bread to selected individuals with the same bread resurfacing on the parallel market where a loaf sells for between $12 billion and $20 billion.
While some consumers expressed satisfaction at the police's move to enforce price controls on basic commodities, others said this would worsen the availability of the goods as retailers would withhold them.
Others also said it was not clear how the police would handle the goods or the proceeds from the sale of confiscated goods. They expressed fears that the police were likely to abuse their powers and convert the goods to their own use. Police in Gweru referred all queries to Police General Headquarters in Harare.
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With the continued shortage of basics and rising inflation, government has established the National Incomes and Pricing Commission to try and control the situation, but to no avail. Every time the government enforces price controls, devastating results of shops "selling shelves" have become a common sight.
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| Copyright © 2008 Zimbabwe Standard. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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