Miti Attacks Price Rises Under PF

With food inflation nearer a two decade high the PF government is coming in for heavy criticism of their management of the economy. For the majority it seems that salaries are not keeping pace with the rise in cost of essential items meaning more and more people are going hungry every day.  

Alliance for Community Action (ACA)Executive Director Laura Miti has set out a problem many are now facing with their buying power now heavily reduced. 

“Simple maths is like this: If, when the PF came to power, in 2011, your salary was K5000, you earned $1000 a month. You could do a lot of stuff including paying for international exams. (Painfully maybe, but you could.) In other words, you earned the equivalent of K22,000 at today's exchange rate. If your salary has doubled to K10,000 since 2011, (unlikely, but let's be generous) you now earn just under $500. Your salary has, in real terms, halved. If you are at the same K5000, you now earn less than $250. Your buying power is now a quarter of what it was,” she writes. 

“Meanwhile, prices have trebled. Take bread, which was at K5 or thereabouts, in 2011. It now goes up to K20. An egg has gone from 50n to K2.50. In short, unless your salary has trebled since 2011, you have had to make major cuts in your lifestyle. You have touched even basics like food and maybe changed your children's school (which you liked) to a cheaper one. As for help to the extended family, you make more excuses and are probably resentful of requests,” Miti continues. 

According to Miti this situation requires an explanation from the PF. “How did we get here, given that it's been a stable 10 years, capped by the highest copper prices in recent history?” she writes. 

Miti lays the blame at their door, claiming that the current situation has a lot to do with “reckless borrowing” and “stealing of the debt money.” She refers people to the Auditor General and FIC reports if they want evidence of the “wanton stealing” that has left a big hole in the fiscus which Zambians now find themselves footing the bill for. She also advises people to check out “the miraculous wealth that has been acquired by the top brass in PF.” 

She calls on the government to explain both how they intend to resolve the situation and how they claim to have become so rich at a time when the economy has fallen apart and many have become impoverished, if not by stealing.