BY KWANGU MANDA
The past few years have been met with mixed feelings from locals who sit at different sides of the fence. One of Zambia’s biggest hurdles has been to address her debt situation, grow the economy and meet the day to day needs of locals.
The Telegraph, a renowned British news service platform, recently discussed their interview with President Hakainde Hichilema regarding the rise of the Kwacha in late 2025: a 10% gain against the dollar in the two weeks leading to January, 2026. This was primarily due to the copper boom reaching an all time high at the LME.
The last quarter also saw a drop in the inflation rate as it ended at 11.2% in December, 2025. The final hit was when Zambia confirmed that it had been receiving mining taxes in yuan from Chinese owned mines since October last year —making the cost of conversions in our loan repayments to China cheaper and also diversifying our reserves.
MACRO SCORES VS MICRO NEEDS
Africa Correspondent to The Telegraph, Ben Farmer, revealed that the British tabloid ranked “HH” no. 5 amongst top world leaders for 2025. However, he further disclosed that many locals feel his government’s scores were “merely academic” and not reflective of what’s on the ground.
Are the scores true? Yes, could people’s sentiments be denied? No. Ultimately, this calls for analysis to understand where the gap needs to be filled.There is a truth in that the macro indicators are real and there is an upward shift in our economic trends, but that the common man feels the macro gains are too long-term for their short-term expectations.
How the country has handled the debt situation is truly remarkable, and the increased economic activity and fiscal discipline is quite an accomplishment owing to the fact that this has been done in less than five years.
The boom is an external blessing, but outlasting it’s uni-sectoral advantage for us needs more rigor and focus.
STRUGGLING LOCALS
How does the aging widow, the ailing retiree, and struggling youth who needs to take care of his younger siblings, deal with the still high cost of living which is a reality in retail outlets yet, scores are there in our data reports?
This is where an immediate, stirring up of local government must come in. As long as we deal with a free market economy and have a few, oligopolistic players in the market, profit will be maximised at the expense of the suffering Zambians.
LOCAL COUNCILS MUST ENTER THE MARKETS
An immediate need is to fragment participants in these markets by mixing local councils into the market. We need to enhance the councils’ enterprise wings and make them become new entrants that provide locals with competitive prices that are a reflection of the reduction in inflation.
They must compete in prices, quality, and efficient service delivery.As it is, the impact of inflation is primarily felt by importers, but the many players that facilitate the movement of commodities from the manufacturing stage to the retail do not have the ordinary Zambian in mind: but the central and local government should.
Furthermore, there should be an intervention in monitoring stock levels before and after price changes on essential commodities to not let citizens be cheated through hoarding/artificial shortages.
As a nation, we are walking between long term patience and short term urgency. A risk of an extreme leaning towards one will cost the other.
