The Jesuit Center for Theological Reflection (JCTR) has called on government to put measures that will reduce the cost of living in the 2022 national budget.
According to the JCTR’s trends analysis findings, the cost of living has continued to increase from K6, 256.95 in January to K7, 704.15 in August this year.
JCTR Social and Economic Development Programmes Coordinator Modester Mwanza said government should address the increasing cost of living in next year’s budget.
“Government should consider implementing policies that will promote production of food so that they can be grown at a larger scale for export purposes and revenue collection.
Ms Mwanza said at a press briefing in Kitwe, that government needs to put in place other policies in next year’s budget that will ease affordability to cost of living.
Ms Mwanza said the trends analysis carried out in 15 towns indicate a persistent increase in the cost of living due to an increase in food prices such as mealie meal, rice, fruits and chicken among others.
She said the prices of non-food items such as charcoal also contributed to an increase in cost of living.
She explained that the country has continued to witness an increase in the cost of living which the organization would like to see addressed in the national budget.
She said the upward in price of food and nonfood were affected by volatility in the macroeconomic indicators such as the exchange rate and inflation rate.
Ms Mwanza said the exchange rate necessitated a hike in prices because the country is dependent on imports.
She said the 2022 budget is a window of opportunity to spell out how key macroeconomics indicators will be addressed towards reducing the cost of living.
Reduced cost of living ain’t happening unfortunately due to the massive debts that PF imposed on Zambians.
Government should also revisit the cost on fuel and electricity cause they contribute to production
Easier said than done, is it’s current state, there is only so much this government can do practical as whatever little money they get, will directly flow into Debt servicing. More or less ,
PF left us more Liabilities than Asset. Debt is a liability and that liability is way above our current financial status. It’s worthy more than Zambia in simple terms.
So we will first have to pay, only then will we be able to talk meaningful development.l
Come on people much as we want government to do something about the high cost of living, as individuals we have to do something. For example farm produced foods shouldn’t be much of a problem. Some of us don’t even know the cost of mealie meal because we grow our own maize which we produce meal flour from. I don’t get vegetables from the market because I grow mine. Suggestions should be on how we should encourage our people to grow food by themselves. There’s no denying that many of our people would first spend money on beer before things like mealie meal.
Some bloggers here are deceivers like their president who spoke of how immediately the prices of essential goods will be reduced after being sown in.
HH is the greatest problem now we have in the Zambian presidential seat he will not move an inch to do what he doggingly promised his electorate , people have no time to be listening to the same song he has been singing these days nothing in the coffers , we are all aware that he is receiving the taxpayers money into the coffers every moment money is tickling in to our surprise he is still singing the same backward anthem he has now adopted.
We shall keep on reminding him how crafty he is , he stole votes from the innocent Zambians by selling them empty promises and he won their hearts not because he was a better candidate…
Easier said than done….Garbage out Garbage in….nothing new nothing will change…as a matter of fact things are getting expensive now….BMW Bally Muntu Wabufi….
He said and his followers said he will fix it but what are hearing now are how he is overwhelmed about what he was going to fix , he is saying there is no hope isn’t he a liar?
Doom Sayers, Economy will be fixed and all will fall in line,its a known fact.