'When the rich catch a cold, the middle class sneezes': Mabasa Sasa went into the streets of Zimbabwe to gauge public feeling about the government's clampdown on price increases. Generally, it was thumbs up for the government.

The decision by the government of Zimbabwe to slash the prices of goods and services to 18 June 2007 levels--representing a 50% deduction across the board--has sharply divided the Zimbabwean public, largely along class and political lines as has become the norm in the Southern African nation.

In the month since the government reached its decision, what has become apparent is business owners and company managers have teamed up on one side in opposition to the price cuts. On the other end of the spectrum are ordinary workers and the peasantry who have largely been grateful for the timely relief.

This sharp divide has been best captured by the fact that some shop workers have actually been at the forefront of calling the price monitors' hotlines to report their belligerent employers.

Brian, a 29-year-old salesman at a shoe retail outlet in the city of Gweru said he welcomed the government directive designed to arrest inflation. "I could hardly afford to purchase some of the shoes I was selling myself but things are better now," said Brian, whose real name is being withheld to protect his job. "They are not yet great, they are still expensive, but at least I can now buy some of the shoes I'm supposed to sell daily.

"But then there's the problem of our managers telling us that our jobs are on the line because the company is not realising the profits they had expected. So that's the downside: I don't know if I will still have my job from one day to the next," he added.

The streets of Harare are a different sight these days. People now jostle to purchase goods at wholesale and retail outlets. Lunch hour queues at fast food outlets are longer than they have been in months, because prices have come down.

At one such outlet along Harare's First Street, Owen Taruza, an accountant at one of the country's leading commercial banks, said: "I think things are particularly bad when a professional worker like myself cannot afford to buy chicken or a burger for lunch. In that context, the government's move is laudable, but I still think that more has to be done to deal with Zimbabwe's economic problems."

Taruza suggested that perhaps the onslaught on overpricing had to be accompanied by a corresponding robust drive to increase exports as a means of improving the country's foreign currency reserves in addition to finding means to attract foreign investors.

Keith Regai, a web solutions expert in Harare, said he had been forced to halve the cost of his services but he was yet to see a congruent increase in the number of people seeking his expertise.

"I am not saying business has slumped though there have been one or two unconfirmed contracts," he said. "The good thing about all this is that everyone has been treated the same, and so while I am now charging less for my services, I also don't need as much money for my daily subsistence as I did a month ago."

Keith, however, said some of his industry colleagues were complaining that some of their clients had frozen all contracts as they have adopted a wait-and-see attitude to determine how things would unfold in the near future.

A University of Zimbabwe economic historian said the division in opinion was "a manifestation of the eternal conflict between the haves and the have-nots".

"The 'petite bourgeoisie' tend to align themselves with the upper classes and if the upper classes catch a cold they are the first to sneeze. Their reaction from this point of view is understandable," the economic historian explained. "The proletariat and the peasantry on the other hand are bound to be ecstatic and what has to be realised is that Zimbabwe's upper and middle classes constitute a miniscule part of the population and the economy.

"It is the informal sector that has driven Zimbabwe's economy of late and as such economic policies must be geared towards protecting and promoting the people behind this sector," he concluded.

The air of suppressed euphoria is almost palpable and it is a safe bet that the majority of Zimbabweans are happy with the policy directive.

At the start of the price clampdown, there was a generally stated sentiment that the government would waver and this was going to turn out to be a lot of hot air.

But with the government assuring the people that this was only the first stage in the state's intervention strategy to cushion Zimbabweans from ever-escalating prices, the first sputtering sparks of belief that the worst could be over have been kindled.