Harare - In a bid to ease worsening meat shortages in Zimbabwe, the state-controlled beef company announced Monday it would increase by around four times the amount it pays farmers for their cattle. Earlier this month President Robert Mugabe's government banned private slaughterhouses from operating as part of its campaign to cut prices.
Only the state-run Cold Storage Company was allowed to continue buying and slaughtering stock. But the low prices it offered meant it was only slaughtering around 100 cattle a day for this nation of 11 million people.
Now the CSC is paying between 10 million and 15 million Zimbabwean dollars per beast, up from 3 million, Monday's edition of the official Herald daily said.
Cash would be paid for cattle sold on the spot by peasant farmers, a company official said. But the new price is still way below the market value of beef, which was around 40 million Zimbabwe dollars per beast before the price blitz.
"We are willing to enter into negotiations with the farmers," CSC head Ngoni Chinogaramombe said.
"We need to buy cattle from farmers largely for local consumption and this is why we are now moving to lure communal and resettled farmers," he said.
The government's campaign to slash prices by at least 50 per cent for all basic goods and services has created acute shortages of many commodities.
Meat freezers in supermarkets are empty, butcher shops have closed down and most shop shelves are empty of basics like sugar, cooking oil, flour and rice.
Police meanwhile Monday said they were extending their blitz - which has so far netted around 5,000 business executives and shop and garage owners - to people plying their trade on the informal market.
At least 150 street vendors were arrested in the capital Harare over the weekend for selling basic commodities at highly-inflated prices, police spokesman Bothwell Mugariri said.
