ETROL was selling at up to Z$20,000 (£42) per litre yesterday, up from Z$9,000 (£19) a week ago, and bus operators are raising their fares twice a day in Zimbabwe as the prices have soared by almost 200 per cent in a fortnight. Standard loaves of fresh bread have all but disappeared from shops since the country was plunged into crisis 12 days ago. Flour, cooking oil and sugar are also in short supply. Tempers are on a knife-edge as inflation spirals - with Robert Mugabe's government fearful of mounting unrest. Zimbabweans have been subjected to nearly seven years of worsening economic turmoil and rapidly increasing prices, provoked by Mr Mugabe's launch of controversial land reforms in 2000. But the increases seen since 11 March - when Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the opposition, and a number of his lieutenants were arrested and beaten by police - have been unprecedented. The pro-government Consumer Council of Zimbabwe yesterday said the price rises had subjected consumers to "untold suffering".
"It has been 12 days and some product prices have shifted by as much as 173.8 per cent - being the shift in the price of roller meal," said Rosemary Siyachitema, the head of the organisation.
Roller meal is another name for maize-meal, which is cooked into a stiff white paste called sadza, the staple food for almost all Zimbabweans. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change warned that Zimbabweans are "hungry and angry" after the brutal attack on Mr Tsvangirai, and mounting police harassment in Harare townships.
Tony Blair yesterday joined in the chorus of condemnation, telling parliament that the situation in Zimbabwe was "appalling, disgraceful and utterly tragic". The Prime Minister vowed to press for a widening of European Union sanctions against Mr Mugabe and his closest associates.
Zimbabwean authorities tried to shift the blame for the latest price hikes away from Mr Mugabe's policies and onto "unscrupulous" businessmen. Gideon Gono, the central bank governor, warned the law would "take its course" against petrol station owners. "We have no sympathy for them," Mr Gono said. Mr Gono wants to force fuel stations to sell fuel at Z$325 (69p) per litre.
"The increases never stop," whispered an assistant in a T-shirt shop in Harare's northern Borrowdale suburb yesterday. "Where's it all going to end?"