Delivery trucks, ambulances, fire trucks, and garbage trucks were also short of fuel. The government announced that gasoline would not be sold to farmers for fall harvests and planting.
Despite the government desperate printing of money it still did not have the funds to keep the infrastructure in operation. Pot holes developed in the streets, elevators stopped functioning, and construction projects were closed down. The unemployment rate exceeded 30 percent.
The government tried to counter the inflation by imposing price controls. But when inflation continued the government price controls made the price producers were getting ridiculous low they stopped producing. In October of 1993 the bakers stopped making bread and Belgrade was without bread for a week. The slaughter houses refused to sell meat to the state stores and this meant meat became unavailable for many sectors of the population. Other stores closed down for inventory rather than sell their goods at the government mandated prices. When farmers refused to sell to the government at the artificially low prices the government dictated, government irrationally used hard currency to buy food from foreign sources rather than remove the price controls. The Ministry of Agriculture also risked creating a famine by selling farmers only 30 percent of the fuel they needed for planting and harvesting.
Later the government tried to curb inflation by requiring stores to file paper work every time they raised a price. This meant that many of the stores employees had to devote their time to filling out these government forms. Instead of curbing inflation this policy actually increased inflation because the stores tended increase prices by a bigger jump so that they would not have file forms for another price increase so soon.
In October of 1993 the monetary authorities created a new currency unit. One new dinar was worth one million of the old dinars. In effect, the government simply removed six zeroes from the paper money. This of course did not stop the inflation and between October 1, 1993 and January 24, 1995 prices increased by 5 quadrillion percent. This number is a 5 with 15 zeroes after it.
In November of 1993 the government postponed turning on the heat in the state apartment buildings in which most of the population lived. The residents reacted to this withholding of heat by using electrical space heaters which were inefficient and overloaded the electrical system. The government power company then had to order blackouts to conserve electricity.
