Africa-Press – Zambia. It is becoming increasingly clear that Mr Hakainde Hichilema does not understand nor empathise with people’s current suffering due to the high cost of living.
Mr Hichilema should understand that people are having very serious difficulties accessing food, medicines, and transport. They are unable to eat, seek medical attention, travel long distances to attend to family emergencies, pay rent, buy electricity, buy clothes for their children, and so on and so forth.
This government is fixated on ‘we found Kwacha at K24’ (which is a lie because it was K15.89 at some point in August 2021), ‘we found inflation at 24%’ which is all rhetoric. But what a common man in the street is concerned about is that things were more affordable during those conditions than now.
The common man is not interested in macroeconomic indicators but being able to afford basic commodities, which they now can’t afford. This has arisen because household income has remained static whilst costs keep rising, and consequently, household purchasing power is going down every month. So, talking to a starving man about investment pledges and debt restructuring when they are hungry is an exercise in futility.
The real solution people want is bringing down the cost of living. Most of the initiatives this government is boasting about are long-term measures, which can not save a dying person who has been given a prescription and can’t buy medicines.
We need immediate policy measures to bring down the cost of living. That is the current missing link. If it means introducing selective targeted subsidies to save people’s livelihood, so be it.
Prices are going up daily and causing discontent amongst common citizens. Everywhere you go, people are complaining about hunger.
Just as an example, why would a gardner earning K900 a month celebrate whether Dollar is K15 or K30? His interest is that he was buying mealie-meal at K130 under those harsh conditions Mr Hichilema is espousing in 2021, but now he is paying K300, and his salary has remained the same. Mr Hichilema needs a reality check. Lining up students won’t feed the common man on the streets.
The sooner HH realises that the better.
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