KATEKA PROTESTS AGAINST HIGH COST OF LIVING

NEW Heritage Party (NHP) president Chishala Kateka yesterday staged a lone pro test against the rising cost of living in the country.

Ms Kateka, with placards denouncing the rising cost of living, stationed herself on the Kafue roundabout in Lusaka for about an hour.

Ms. Kateka said the NHP has been constantly asking the government to address the issue of the rising cost of living but it seemed the UPND ad ministration had other priorities.

Ms. Kateka demonstrated with placards reading, “there is no money in the econo my, Njala Mumanyumba, 1Tomato equals K1, 1 Onion equals K2.50, ka Bally is going for K3 and Malasha equals K10.”

She said the reason that she protested was that the gov ernment needed to start ad dressing the issue of the cost of living which has skyrock eted beyond the reach of the majority of Zambians.

Ms. Kateka said there was no way ministers could be seated comfortably in their offices when Zambians were languishing in poverty be cause they could not access the basic commodities that were needed for survival.

She said today, a K100 could not buy anything that could sustain a family for a day because prices of goods and services kept on rising ev ery day.

“It’s not only people in the compounds everybody is affected,” she said.

Ms. Kateka said the UPND administration was bragging about having dropped the in flation rate from 22 percent to 10.2 percent but the question that remains unanswered was that why was the drop in in flation being reflected in the reduction on prices of goods and services.

She said the government had also not explained what was causing the drop in the inflation rate and why the cost of living was going up.