Editorial: The Soaring Cost of Survival in Zambia—Time to Face the BNNB Crisis
By George N. Mtonga
Financial and Political Analyst
Over the last 14 years, Zambia’s Basic Needs and Nutrition Basket (BNNB) has ballooned from just under K3,000 in 2011 to an alarming K11,599 in February 2025. That’s nearly a 300% increase in the cost of living—a number that should send shockwaves through every corner of policy and political power in this country.
This is not just an economic statistic. It is the story of a teacher in Lusaka who can’t stretch her pay to the end of the month. It is the story of a mother in Chipata choosing between paying school fees or buying cooking oil. The BNNB measures the bare minimum needed for a family of five to live a decent, dignified life—and every time that figure rises, the pressure on Zambia’s working class, informal traders, and unemployed youth rises with it.
What’s Driving the Surge?
Multiple factors have contributed to the relentless climb of the BNNB:
Currency depreciation: As the kwacha weakens, the price of imports—fuel, cooking oil, fertilizer—spikes. These increases ripple across the economy.
Agricultural shocks: Repeated droughts and poor harvests have made food prices more volatile.
Energy crises: Load shedding drives up the cost of running businesses, storing food, and even cooking.
Poor policy coordination: Successive governments have lacked long-term planning on food security, inflation control, and economic diversification.
Let’s be honest—Zambians are not demanding luxury. They are demanding affordability in maize meal, beans, kapenta, rent, and electricity. The essentials.
A Political Wake-Up Call
The BNNB is the most honest economic indicator Zambia has—it doesn’t care about GDP growth projections or press statements. It reflects real pain at the kitchen table.
It also speaks to a failure of accountability. While the UPND government has made efforts at fiscal discipline and debt restructuring, these gains mean nothing if the average citizen is worse off month after month.
We cannot allow the BNNB to keep rising unchecked. It is a silent emergency.
What Needs to Happen
1. Declare the BNNB a national benchmark: Every budget and economic policy must ask—how does this affect the BNNB?
2. Invest in food production and price stabilization: That means irrigation, smart subsidies, and reducing reliance on imports.
3. Cut wasteful public spending: Redirect resources from bloated bureaucracies into social protection and productivity.
4. Stabilize the kwacha: This requires hard choices—less borrowing, more exports, and policies that attract long-term investment, not speculative capital.
5. Create targeted tax relief: Especially for low-income earners who are suffocating under the cost of essentials.
Conclusion: A Test of Political Will
The BNNB doesn’t lie. It doesn’t debate. It doesn’t spin. It simply reminds us—month after month—that for many Zambians, life is getting harder, not better.
And if Zambia’s leaders—across all parties—do not begin to treat the rising cost of living as the national emergency it is, they will be held accountable not in editorials like this one, but in the cries of the hungry, the growing protests of the youth, and the ballots of a disillusioned electorate.
Let us act—before K12,000 becomes the new normal for merely surviving in Zambia
It has been ballooning since 1964.
With PF the road Ndola to Muf costed 189M USA dollars and all Zambians could not see the road worked on. Our eyes became politically blinded because of PF.
Remember that takalaba mwembwa
Aaaaaaaahah! Do you people also use graphs. You, you prefer ulutoshi lwabwali to communicate but today you are using graphs to analyse and communicate. I sm very suprised. Uku Kuwayawayafye!
Prices despite the cost of living also being high, they ( prices ) will also not shy away from shaking or rising. They will at one time or another be in some movements either upwards or downwards, what is importànt mostly in life is for citizens otherwise to have desposable income to manage their position when the it happens in order to have these items. At tmes complimentary aworks also better.
When Dr. Kenneth David Buchizya Kaunda KK was president of the Republic of Zambia, Zambians used to buy even 50kg bag of mealei meal. At the time of his living office in 1991 a bag of 25kg breakfast meal was going at between K10 and K15. When PF came into ppwer in 2011 a bag of 25kg breakafast meal wads at between K30 and K40/K45 they picked from Levy Patrick Mwanawasa’s MMD. When Lungu gis ECLs PF was living office in 2021 a bag of breakfast meal was between K160 and K190 now in UPND a bag of 25kg meal ( i mean now ) it is between K230 and K380
All things being equal, you will very soon see a paradigm shift in a great postive way because of the visionary leadership of HH interventions.
TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH EVEN the mealie meal IN UNIP AT K10 /K15 a bag of 25 kg of mealie meal, not everyone manged – people used to complain of highcost of mealie meal. PK Chishala even composed a song at, ” umutengo wabunga nabucilamo” KK brought “the go back to the land program” ,using the mwamba luchembe Mitsubishi vehicle trucks, some youths were given land in kanakantampa restlement scheme and transport them there but the majority ran away and returned in the compounds of mtendere, kalingalinga to mention but a few just to drink chibuku and kachasu. Others started stealing from people but the few who remained are now elders staying at their own small holdings with land and accomodation. Those areas are now fetching thousands of kwacha if you want to sale. They grow their own food, enough for their families and surplus for sale.
Now, you come again like satan to deceive people about the cost of living instead of helping them to be engaged in something for their livelyhood and worjing hard, but you have changed from your ulutoshi lwabwali to the graphs that you initially complained about when His Excillency President HAKAINDE HICHILEMA used it. You are like Judas Iscariot who complained when that lady poured expensive oil on the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. Judas Iscariot Being a deceiver, he complained about westage because to him, that oil was supposed to be sold so that the noney could be used to help the poor – in order to help the poor but the Lord Jesus Christ told him how important that oil was to HIM because the poor will always be there. Moreover, Like yourself just as Judas was you are, and your motive is totally different – to deceive people to think that you mean well yet it is vice -versa. You are a traitor with absolutely no plan whatsoever for this nation apart from your belly. You always spend alot of money on your drinking and playful errands but you give your houseboy/ maid and garden boy peanuts ( about K500 or K700 as salary per month do you think such a one will make it in life, and you are many of this kind who are doing so- reflect ) to make such a one to suffer and complain year in year out- reflect and think twice life is too short live it to make a smile on someone’s face)
HH is a great leader leading by exampe and showing us how to do things and the way. Those who will listen and put into practice what he says will proseper while those who will listern to the likes of you will also get one or two things.
NIPANO TULI.
1. Knowledge is power.
2. Also people perish because of luck of knowledge.
Now it is FORWARD. No turning back.
Because out of the many things that the New Dawn government under the leadership of President HAKAINDE HICHILEMA some people are also trying by all means to deceive and blind people. But as for me and my family;
I count these things that include as something absolutely great,
1. Employment of more than 80, 000 youths in the civil servants as something great because they will also help their families in one way or another.
2. Free education is something great as a normal human being i have to thank the President because it has somehow relieved especially vulnerable and viable children to access this facility and shape their future. Parents don’t buy PF uniforms from teachers in schools or pay for the projects every term that were not even there.
3. Stopping cadrerism. This was a very dangerous PF gang group that harrased citizens with impunity.
4. Stopping PF cadres and their leaders steal from the government in terms of collecting revenue from markets and bus stops while council workers went without salaries for months.
5. Promoting hard work and growing enough food for consumption and sale. Go back to the land slogan thought of – KK model.
6. NAPSA 20% withdraw has really helped alot of people.
7. Desmatling the huge retirees payment.
8. Paying the army 100% when on UN mission
9. Increading the numbers in scholarships and loans in public universities.
10. Restructuring the debt that ECL and his PF failed to manage after defaulting in 2020 and waa consodered to be not trustful in the eyes of the lenders and international community.
11. Reinstating meal allowances for our children in public universities. All these should make some to say thank NEW DAWN GOVERNMENT and the President of the Republic of Zambia President HAKAINDE HICHILEMA for such great achievements.
Graph presentation could be a very easy way of showing some explanations like the rise of costs of food in space of marked years.It is good however, that we can appreciate this kind of presentation.The presenter of the graph didn’t do a good job.The years are not well marked to give a good picture on how the increase grew over the specified years.It is good to avoid political bias when making some explanations that may need economic or mathematical analysis.The increase of costs of BNNB is not clear and not balancing over the specified years.The indicator line is not giving proper suggestions as it is almost straight.He talked without saying anything.He must go back to the “ulutoshi” concept than attempting to bring blame games.