ZANU-PF congress to tackle economic woes

Zimbabwe's controversial land reform programme and the country's economic troubles were expected to top the agenda at the ruling ZANU-PF annual congress on Friday, news reports said. Reuters reported that President Robert Mugabe was likely to use the opportunity to entrench his own position. The ruling party has dismissed suggestions that the retirement of Mugabe would be on the agenda as he had been elected to lead the party its 2005 congress. The country is facing one of its worst economic crises ever, with the official inflation rate at 144 percent in November. The effects of the foreign currency squeeze were again felt this week, as petrol stations ran dry. Newspapers reported that in some parts of the country queues of cars and buses stretched for kilometres waiting for petrol. The state-run Herald newspaper reported: "Petrol pumps ran dry throughout the country yesterday [Thursday] amid shocking revelations that the National Oil Company of Zimbabwe (NOCZIM) is contemplating terminating its secure fuel deal with Tamoil, a Libyan international oil supplier." The fuel crisis started at the end of 1999 because of a lack of foreign currency to purchase the commodity. In November, Mugabe said foreign oil companies with retail outlets in Zimbabwe should import their own products for re-sale, ending the government's monopoly. Meanwhile, Wellington Chibhebhe, the secretary-general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), and seven other union leaders, arrested by the police on Monday while attending a labour meeting, were on Thursday released by police without being charged. The arrests came on the eve of a national stayaway called by the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), and backed by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Under the Public Order and Security Act, the police have no power to sanction meetings of professional and union bodies such as the ZCTU.