The kwacha has had a rough ride due to waning demand from the world’s top copper consumer, China, which hammered the southern African nation’s foreign exchange revenues.
Last week Zambia’s central bank left its benchmark lending rate unchanged at 15.5 percent, saying it was concerned with slowing growth in the continent’s number two copper producer. Many Zambians say that they are already feeling the effects of the country’s economic challenges.
“The economy has been getting tougher especially in the last one year. Prices of essential goods are way too much and the currency is making things worse. I am a taxi driver and my pay is not making sense, I have children that I must educate, feed and clothe, but this government is not doing enough to help poor people like me. ” Brian Mutambo, Kalingalinga Resident
President Edgar Lungu’s government insists it has no control over commodity prices and blames the power shortages on drought and low water levels in hydropower dams.
“Zambia has had sober leadership during this time when we have had a lot of challenges triggered by economic global factors, its President Edgar Lungu who has provided that leadership. Zambia has seen roads, universities, hospitals, schools — a lot of infrastructure development under his leadership,” Frank Bwalya,
Director of Communications, Ruling Patriotic Front
President Lungu said last year that Zambia would not take over the struggling mines that have shed jobs after a sharp fall in global copper prices and power shortages, adding that government had tried its best to keep the job losses to a minimum. The country has resumed issuing new mining licences, and was granting renewal and transfer of rights which it had suspended in August last year among other efforts to boost growth.
“Twelve months in office we can talk about very little that we have seen, of course they have continued with infrastructure development and other things, those were ongoing programs. People really are concerned about prices which have gone very high, inflation has risen very very high.” Neo Simutanyi,
Political Analyst
The World Bank has said Zambia’s GDP growth will fall below 4 percent this year due to a combination of domestic and international pressures but expansion will pick up in subsequent years
