Zimbabwe price crackdown moves to Mugabe heartland

By MacDonald Dzirutwe

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe has sent crack police to enforce price freezes in the rural strongholds of President Robert Mugabe, where businesses have failed to heed measures aimed at reining in inflation and halting economic collapse.

Mugabe's government, grappling with inflation of 4,500 percent, ordered businesses last month to roll back and freeze prices on petrol, bread, milk, cooking oil and other key consumer items after a sharp increase in their prices.

The move has prompted panic buying, leading to empty store shelves and long lines at petrol stations, and pushed the economically depressed southern African nation closer to breaking point.

"We have started deploying many officers to rural areas to make sure there is compliance, and we are saying we are not going to stop until we are satisfied that there is total compliance," police spokesman Oliver Mandipaka told Reuters.

Mandipaka said many businesses in rural areas -- where the majority of Zimbabwe's population lives and where Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party enjoys strong support -- had failed to follow the government's directive on prices.

So far, the crackdown has been concentrated in the capital Harare and other urban areas where workers have borne the brunt of the severe economic crisis. It has led to arrests and fines for 1,768 executives and companies.

The chief executive of Zimbabwe's largest supermarket chain has been arrested and faces 41 charges of defying the price freeze, while police on Wednesday seized 49 commuter buses and detained the drivers for overcharging, Mandipaka said.

Public commuter operators have grounded their fleets, citing fuel shortages and a forced 60-percent reduction in fares, leaving thousands of commuters stranded.