By Angus Shaw
Harare - President Robert Mugabe has promised to print more money for underfunded municipal projects - at the height of the government's campaign to cut retail prices to tame the country's hyperinflation.
The Herald newspaper, a government mouthpiece, reported on Saturday that Mugabe told a meeting of local councillors that they should put more pressure on government ministers to improve service delivery.
"Where money for projects has not been found, we will print it," Mugabe was quoted as saying. "Some ministries need to be pushed not by me at the top alone because I do not see what they do at the bottom. Push them at the bottom," he said.
The printing of money is generally regarded as a recipe for further inflation - which is officially 4 500 percent in Zimbabwe - though estimated to be at least twice as high. The government last month ordered sweeping price cuts of around 50 percent, accusing store owners and businesses of fuelling the inflation.
The price cuts have left shelves bare of cornmeal, bread, meat, milk, eggs and other staples across the country with businesses saying they can't afford to sell at the new prices. About 5 000 executives, managers and gas station and store owners have been arrested and fined for defying the government's price cut order since it was issued June 26.
Zimbabwe is in the grips of its worst crisis since independence from Britain. Power, water, health and communications systems are collapsing, and there are acute shortages of staple foods and gasoline, some of it required for gasoline-driven generators.
Unemployment is around 80 percent
Water storage drums were sold out in one main Harare hardware store on Friday as water shortages worsened. The state water utility said it suffered new breakdowns at its pumping stations during the week.
Amid daily power outages which have forced Zimbabweans to light fires for cooking and heating water, a woodlands park used for classes on conservation faced collapse through the loss of trees to "wood poachers," state radio reported on Friday.
School groups visit the woodlands for classes on the habitat, bird life and wild animals kept in the bush of the park.
The radio said illegal wood cutters were denuding the two square kilometre area of indigenous msasa trees and other hardwoods favoured for long-burning firewood.
In a further sign of Zimbabwe's woes, Vice President Joyce Mujuru lambasted the Ministry of Health and Child Welfare for the death of kidney patients for lack of dialysis machines.
This was after the biggest government hospital group acknowledged Friday that 10 of its 18 kidney dialysis machines were awaiting repair and imported spare parts needing scarce hard currency.
Dozens of patients needing dialysis now fear for their lives.
But Mujuru accused officials at one hospital - Mpilo - of not installing the machines in the first place even though she personally sourced the equipment from abroad in 2004.
"This is the sort of ineptitude that we have always been complaining about," she told The Herald.
Lack of hard currency for imports is crippling the health sector - like other parts of the economy.
Pharmacists on Friday advised Aids patients to stock up with their drugs while they could after local manufacturers warned they would soon run out of imported raw materials. About 20 percent of Zimbabweans are infected with the Aids virus.
"This medication is for life," said one pharmacist who asked not to be named for professional reasons. "Interrupting the dosage is disastrous." - Sapa-AP