The Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection (JCTR) says the cost of living as measured by the JCTR Basic Needs Basket for the month of June 2012 has shown a significant increase.
JCTR Acting social conditions programme Manager Sosten Banda in a statement released to QFM says the cost of living for an average family of five in Lusaka stood K3,395,660, an increase of K485,840 from K2,909,820 in May 2012.
Mr Banda says the upward adjustment was influenced mainly by increase in the cost of essential non-food items like accommodation and electricity.
He states that as the cost of living increase, it only makes sense that wages and salaries in both the private and public sectors correspondingly increase, failure to which poverty will perpetuate as majority of Zambians’ will be unable to meet the cost of basic food and essential non-food items, especially in the long-run.
He adds that despite the observed reduction in some basic needs, the cost of living is still high and unaffordable to many households especially that the cost of housing and electricity keeps rising significantly.
Mr Banda says serious and sustained policy steps starting with the New Minimum Wage yet to be announced should be encouraged as they will ensure that a typical worker in Zambia gets a wage will that enables them to at least meet the cost of food items.
He calls on Government to come up with a minimum wage that is fair to both the employer and employee and private parties, while calling on other stakeholders on the other hand to ensure that the new minimum wage once announced is timely effected.
Mr Banda explains that a fair minimum wage and quick implementation will further reduce the industrial unrest that has characterized the county in recent times.
He further adds that policies, strategies and initiatives that ensure sustained employment creation, especially for the youths that account for 80% of Zambia’s total population will help remedy the high income poverty that such groups are currently experiencing.
QFM
Which website has the breakdown of this amount K3,395,660?
we like it
The rise in cost of living is all the more reason to have smaller families with fewer kids that one can support.Days when we could have five or six kids are well over and its time to concentrate on quality of life.The explosion in population since independence has put a large dent on gains in per capita income that has ensured there’s less govt resources to go around and with rising costs both the private and public sectors will hire less.
@Enka Rasha
Good point, but others argue that Zambia’s ratio of people to resources is still very low. They say there is so much unemployment of resources which has resulted in stagnation of the economy, Zambia needs a bigger population as its domestic market, and that it’s government that has failed to plan for the increase in population since independence as resources are enough to sustain the current size.
It’s not the increase in population that has caused a high cost of living but a mismanagement of the economy by successive governments. As it is, our current government does not have a clear economic plan, neither does it have one on the population.
You are very right, i have asked Many Zambians just to get my own statistics and to see what their thoughts are about unemployment and the economy-I have asked why is Zambian not doing so fine as in abundance of employment i even compare with Botswana and they respond that because Botswana has a smaller population that’s why they are doing fine, i have asked How about Nigeria it seems to be doing well possibly better than Zambia and the response is because they have a larger population as compared to Zambia. But then this means that Zambia has just the right number of people to govern not too many and not too little. Therefore all whats needed is good management.
Though on the part of the current government i disagree with you. I believe that the current government is doing a good job it may not be perfect but its moving things in the right direction. It does not take a few days or months to build a country its longer than that.
@4. Trigo, how exactly is Nigeria doing well? Nigeria is a failed state. A nation of 165 million that only generates 3500 mw of electricity is a disgrace. A nation of 165 m that imports most of its staple foods is not a nation to admire. There is no way Nigeria can be said to be doing better than Zambia. That is just plain wrong.
I fully concur about Nigeria being a failed state.I watched a video on youtube titled “lack of decent toilets in Lagos” and i was shocked.I would rather live in any slum in Lusaka than live in Ajegunle.
@Trigo, you can have a policy of increasing per capita income, and that’s just what it is, a policy. The policy has to be accompanied with short and long term plans of action. For instance you could specify that we are going to generate $4b dollars a month from agric activities by the end of 2012…broken down to actions that cause, e.g. establishment of 500+ commercial farmers within the next 3 months…broken down actions that can fund farm land development and import of commercial equipment for our farmers within a month etc. Such would be a strategic plan that would eventually realise the increase in income and employment in the agric sector. A plan with Short Measureable Attainable Time bound (SMART) goals must be in place for every policy issued. We don’t have that now
What cost of living?????? Do they mean from kapenta to delele or kasepa to impwa ??? COST OF LIVING !!!!!!STUPID FOOLS
#3 Rycus Zambia’s ratio of people to resources is neither here nor there.What would the same people say about Sweden or Norway’s population which is smaller than zambia but its an economy worth $500bn. Its is the skills and knowhow of the population that matters and zambia needs to emphasize knowledge.Thats where our economy has suffered and the running of mines by the chinese attests to that fact: we don’t have the skills.
@7 Enka Rasha, I agree with you and you’ve picked a very good country for an example. Norway has a small population but a substantial stock of natural resources, talk about a booming oil, timber and fish industry. Because of top technological and political skills, their resources are well managed that they are realizing something close to the full potential out of them, and they are always trying to multiply that $500bn every sec that passes, with a fully government supported investment portfolio. They’ve imported skill where they’ve lacked it. Their offshore oil rigs engineers are a mix of all nations. The bottom line is they’re managing themselves very well because of excellent technological and political skills. Copying and pasting like the Asians do would not be a bad idea for Zed.