Mugabe threatens to seize firm's assets

Robert Mugabe has accused the giant mining company Anglo American of "sabotaging" his government by hoarding salt to create shortages, and has threatened to seize its assets, Zimbabwe's state media reported yesterday.

The President spoke as the Commonwealth secretary general, Don McKinnon, admitted that his organisation, which suspended Zimbabwe for a year in March, had failed to help the country.

"All the things that any international organisation has done have not had any impact," he said. "We [the Commonwealth] have done more than anyone, but I cannot say that anything we have done has had any effect on putting the government on another course of action. It is sad that nothing is improving in that nation ... I am not at all hopeful that anything is going to change."

Mr Mugabe's threat to implement a new policy of company seizures, starting with an important local food firm partly owned by the London-based Anglo American plc, came after reports that his government had found about 200 tonnes of salt in raids on warehouses owned by National Foods around the country.

"I want to say this to National Foods, an Anglo American company of Nicky Oppenheimer," Mr Mugabe said at a meeting of his central committee on Saturday. "Tell this nation why they have been hoarding salt? Do they still want to operate in partnership with our government? With our people? If not, we will take over their enterprises."

Mr Mugabe accused National Foods of hoarding salt to fuel disaffection against his government. "They want people on the streets against our government. What kind of behaviour is this? What kind of mischief is this?"

Company officials were not available to comment, but state media last week quoted a National Foods manager as saying it had suspended salt imports until the government lifted price controls. Salt is only the latest commodity to disappear from supermarket shelves after staples such as maize meal, margarine, sugar, cooking oil and bread.

Zimbabwe is mired in crisis, with inflation last month officially at 122.5 per cent and unemployment levels at more than 60 per cent. The country is also facing a critical shortage of foreign currency. The problems have been blamed mainly on Mr Mugabe's policy of seizing productive white farms, which have ended up in the hands of his cronies. The Commercial Farmers Union says that 95 per cent of all white-owned farmland has been earmarked for compulsory confiscation.

Economic analysts have repeatedly said no serious international investors will consider putting money into Zimbabwe while they face the prospect of having their investments seized by Mr Mugabe.

The threat to seize National Foods is the latest confrontation between Mr Mugabe and Mr Oppenheimer, heir to a wealthy South African family that turned Anglo American into one of the biggest mining firms in the world and a major player in Zimbabwe's economy. Since the government launched its drive to seize white-owned farms for black resettlement two years ago, vast tracts of land owned by the Oppenheimer family have been listed for compulsory acquisition.

Anglo American said two years ago that it had put on hold a new platinum mining project and other new investments in Zimbabwe until political and economic stability returned.