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A man holds a cellphone top-up card worth 100 billion Zimbabwean dollars in Harare July 17, 2008.REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo
HARARE-Zimbabwe's annual inflation hit a record 231 million percent in July, piling pressure on the ruling party and opposition to break a deadlock in negotiations and form a cabinet that can rescue the ruined economy.President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party and the opposition MDC again held more unsuccessful talks to end stalled power sharing negotiations on Wednesday, frustrating Zimbabweans who hoped new leadership would bring relief from hardship.Many Zimbabweans have resorted to bartering goods and rely on help from relatives abroad, mostly in South Africa, for supplies of scant basic foodstuffs like maize, sugar and cooking oil.A loaf of bread which cost Z$500 when the central bank redenominated the Zimbabwe dollar on August 1, now goes for at least Z$7,000.Central Statistical Office data showed that on a monthly basis, prices shot up by 2,600.2 percent compared with 839.3 percent in June, largely driven by high prices of bread and cereals. The yearly inflation figure was 11.2 million percent in June, official figures showed on Thursday.An outline agreement signed on September 15 has stalled over key cabinet posts, angering Zimbabweans who have had to endure the world's fastest price rises, shortages of food, foreign currency and crumbling infrastructure. Both sides accuse each other of jeopardizing the process."What is baffling is that the political players seem to take a cavalier attitude over the political crisis whose resolution is tied to the economic turnaround," said Eldred Masunungure, a political science lecturer at University of Zimbabwe."The consequences of such a rate of inflation is absolute desperation, despair and poverty. The politicians don't seem to realize that what they do or don't do has an effect on the economy."
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