Posted on 07/27/2007 7:14:29 PM PDT by blam
Mugabe has lots of food at local shop Last Updated: 2:38am BST 28/07/2007
Shoppers in the supermarkets of Harare have nothing left to buy. But in Borrowdale Brooke, where the country’s senior politicians live, everything from lobster to single malt whisky can be found — at a price
The shelves in Zimbabwe's stores are bare, but in a leafy suburb of Harare it's a different story, Sebastien Berger reports
Robert Mugabe's local supermarket is unlike any other shop in Zimbabwe. Elsewhere there are gaping empty shelves where bread, butter, sugar, meat and the staple maize meal should be.
But at the Spar in the Borrowdale Brooke suburb of the capital Harare, close to the president's palatial hillside residence, almost anything is available, including focaccia bread, sun-dried tomatoes and cigars.
The difference typifies a nation where a small ruling elite enjoy lives of wealth and privilege, while the vast majority exist in grinding poverty and struggle simply to survive.
The president's local Spar is one of the few shops in the country with an undiminished supply of bread amid an economic and agricultural crisis that has seen inflation spiral to more than 4,500 per cent.
The government-set price for a loaf is Z$22,000, less than 10 pence, and queues of people can spend hours waiting to buy the one or two packets they are allowed.
At the Spar, though, half-size fluffy white loaves are Z$70,000. One ordinary shopper looked at the price, clicked his teeth in resignation, and walked away.
Elsewhere in the shop, a 400g box of infant formula was Z$299,000 and 250g of butter priced at Z$497,000.
The frozen food section was replete with fish - Z$766,000 for six fishcakes - as well as shrimps and squid.
There is no sign that Zimbabwe's feared price inspectors, who have arrested or charged nearly 5,000 managers and firms across the country for not heeding the official price capping, have come to call, or any concern they might visit.
Asked how the shop was able to stock bread when so few other merchants can obtain supplies - which they would have to sell at a crippling loss - an assistant laughed and said: "I don't know."
The supermarket's ownership may have something to do with it. The proprietor is Ray Kaukonde, the governor of Mashonaland East province. He is also a close lieutenant of Solomon Mujuru, a former army commander whose wife, Joyce, is one of Mr Mugabe's two vice-presidents. The clientele are similarly well-connected. Borrowdale Brooke is Harare's plushest suburb, full of mansions that are home to the highest-ranking comrades of Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party, as well as to the country's richest businessmen.
On the other side of the city, in the sprawling dormitory suburb of Chitungwiza, the TM superstore is a forlorn contrast. There is no bread, no fresh meat, no maize meal, but plentiful supplies of condiments, packet soups, and lavatory paper - items that few here would describe as essentials.
Few shoppers even bother to go. What they can afford is not available, and what there is they do not want.
Zim Ping.
This sort of thing makes me sick, the elites have single malt whiskey, joe average has bupkiss, and yet the farm economy has been kicked overboard by the folks who drink single malt.
OK, So shoot him already!
Some animals are definitely more equal than others.
Mrs VS
just like in any old commie state
This is actually an improvement. Thirty years ago I would have put the figure at 75%.
-ccm
The world turns a blind eye to this Black thug because he was instrumental in ending the rule of the White thugs who look better and better every day he stays in power.
Will the real Jack Bauer please stand up and go kill those b@st@rds?
Hey I love most oif your idea except putting arms on the pallets Why not stock the with food and drop them in redidential areas all over the country.
No bad press in that. Just keep doing it and the people will take care of Mugabe themselves and the countrt will put itself in order.
gee, no spelling errors in that one , sorry
Maybe Obama would like to meet with Mugabe?
Another Cuba. This is what Hillary wants for us when she says things will be taken away for your own good.
Isn’t Oprah Mugabe’s friend and didn’t she just earn #261 million in a year and doesn’t she love to help Africa?
Hmmmm
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Of course they would have to show a picture of a white child walking thru a aisle full of food.
Good catch. I looked at the shelves, and the child pushing the little cart, but the racial element did not register.
Most of the food would immediately be seized by the government's thugs. The people wouldn't get much of it. If they got only a small percentage of the arms, they could then get the rest that they needed from the government thugs.
No bad press in that. Just keep doing it and the people will take care of Mugabe themselves and the countrt will put itself in order.
All the food in the world won't help them overthrow a police state.
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