Bread price shocker for Zimbabweans

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By Angus Shaw

LONG-SUFFERING Zimbabweans hunted for bread in shops Monday during a government clampdown against bakers accused of overcharging.

Also Monday, most international e-mail and Internet services neared collapse after the state communications company failed to pay its hard currency satellite charges and the nation's key Intelsat link was cut off.

Stores reported a halt to bread deliveries Monday after the arrest of three food company executives by police acting for trade ministry price inspectors.

The executives, one from Harare's biggest private bakery, were accused of hiking prices on bread and dairy goods in defiance of government-controlled pricing.

The price of a regular loaf of bread rose by 30 percent Friday to 330 Zimbabwe dollars ($1.32), the fifth increase this year.

Bakers insisted flour shortages and soaring costs of ingredients, transport and packaging in the ailing economy forced them to exceed the government's fixed price to continue production.

Price inspectors ordered stores to reduce the bread price Monday and deliveries dried up, store managers said.

Zimbabwe is suffering its worst economic crisis since independence in 1980, with acute shortages of food, hard currency, gasoline and essential imports. Official annual inflation is a record 1,204 percent, the highest in the world. - AP

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