Zimbabwe authorities ordered businesses yesterday to stop selling basic goods in bulk to avert shortages after an official price freeze triggered a frenzied buying spree that has emptied most shop shelves. President Robert Mugabe?s government last week ordered businesses to roll back prices to June 18 levels after wild increases of up to 300% within a week following the plunge of the local currency on a thriving black market.

Spiralling prices have pushed inflation above 4,500 percent, the highest in the world, underscoring an eight-year economic recession that has ravaged urban workers the most and sparked foreign currency, fuel and food shortages.

Mugabe denies charges he has presided over the country?s worst economic crisis since independence from Britain in 1980 and instead says the West has sabotaged the economy to punish him for seizing white-owned commercial farms for blacks.