Govt to withdraw licences for profiteering businesses

GOVERNMENT is going to withdraw operating licenses of shops that are profiteering and give them to "patriotic" people, Defence and War Veterans Welfare deputy minister Victor Matemadanda has said.

Speaking to journalists after touring a number of shops in Bulawayo yesterday, Matemadanda, who is also Zanu-PF national political commissar, said there was no justification for price increases currently obtaining in the country.

"We have seen people in one of the wholesale shops tearing away price tags when they saw that we were getting into the shop, meaning they know that the prices that they are charging are wrong, and why should they do that in the first place?" Matemadanda said.

"Why should they do wrong things when they know they are punishing an already suffering population? That is cruelty and corruption. They must be punished for that. Every shop that you see has got an operating license. We are going to make sure that some of these things are withdrawn and given to patriotic people," he said.

"We are not saying people should operate on a loss, but we are saying they must be responsible. This is what we are saying and the President [Emmerson Mnangagwa] has said it. Prices must go down and there is no justification for these, especially when they do not want even to reveal the prices that they are charging."

Matemadanda said in one of the shops, they discovered that the price tags put on the shelves were not similar to those at the tills.

Matemadanda said it is not the profit margin that made businesses survive, but proper operational ethics.

"The people of Zimbabwe elected us to run this country and at times you put some screws on people so that they are governed," he said.