According to figures from the Centre for Social Concern (CfSC), the cost of living easing by 12% in the first six months of 2020  from K223 173 for a family of six in January to K197 980 in June.

Despite the above, CfSC says that low wage earners are suffering. Last week, the Leader of opposition in Parliament Kondwani Nankhumwa challenged the government to come up with short and medium term policy interventions to avert loss of jobs due to COVID-19 related retrenchments.

“Recent statistics indicate that over 300,000 people have lost jobs since the outbreak started and projections indicate that over 1 million people may lose jobs by December this year.” said Nankhumwa, “These figures are alarming and the government needs to move quickly to arrest the trend,”.