COLUMN ONE - He can get it for you fast - Inflation in Zimbabwe has made everything scarce, but black-market cowboy Kuda Shumba is at your service, if you can pay a 500% markup.

That's what it takes to be one of Zimbabwe's black-market cowboys.

Shumba spends his days on a motorbike sniffing out almost- impossible-to-find items such as sugar, cooking oil, bread, margarine or cellphone SIM cards, risking years in a dank prison if caught. His markup: 500%-plus.

His cellphone is his lifeline. He gets calls from a couple of dozen contacts who tip him off when a scarce commodity -- which nowadays in Zimbabwe includes all basic needs -- is about to appear in a store. Then he swoops in.

Store supervisors and other staff members sell most of what they have to people such as Shumba, pocketing a cut.

"I get them from the back door. You can't get them straight," he said. "I feel happy because I can get things fast and resell them quickly. That's my advantage: I'm fast. You have to be fast."

In this country suffering from hyperinflation, where the black market value of 1 million Zimbabwean dollars is $5.50, the underground dealers are the bane of the government. But President Robert Mugabe's increasingly draconian efforts to control the lurching economy by imposing price controls were a gift to them, triggering severe shortages.

Agriculture in Zimbabwe, once southern Africa's breadbasket, with a thriving tobacco industry, has gone into decline since early 2000, when Mugabe allowed the seizure of white-owned farms, most of which ended up in the hands of ruling party cronies. Production plummeted, investors fled, and the country has been struggling with severe shortages since.

Price controls meant some businesses had to run at a loss, so even more goods disappeared from the shelves. Although the government recently has increased some prices, the state-run newspaper Herald reports that widespread shortages persist.

"I can make a lot of money because the government is saying people have to sell this at 50,000 [Zimbabwean dollars], so businessmen are no longer buying these things for resale," Shumba said. "I'll make a lot of money, 30 million-plus" a month.

On the black market exchange rate, that would be $166. Still, it's a handsome salary compared with the 2 million Zimbabwean dollars a month, or $11, he estimates he would be making in his old job as a clerk, a post he abandoned in disgust several years ago because of the low pay.