New food price controls

Mugabe also said in the interview his government planned to reintroduce price controls on essential foods. He said prices of the staple, corn meal, as well as bread and beef will be fixed by state-imposed regulations, but declined to say when this would be done. "We definitely want to restore controls. We have already started by preventing corn millers from raising their prices without government permission," Mugabe said. Price fixing was abandoned when Mugabe's government adopted market-led economic reforms in 1992, ending a decade of socialist economic policies. The move, analysts said, was likely to further displease major donors, and lending agencies like the International Monetary Fund which have backed market-linked reforms. The IMF and the World Bank earlier this year put further funding on hold over Zimbabwe's failure to meet economic reform targets.