Zambians are fed up with empty economic promises. We need a system that works for ordinary people not political elites, billionaires
The elite speak of "austerity" as if it were a bitter medicine we were all expected to swallow and get better. But the ones making such decisions aren't the ones feeling the side effects.
By Farai Kadyamoto
News of Zambia’s successor project with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a heavy blow to Mary Siisii whose family survives by selling vegetables and spices in Lusaka’s Lilanda market. For Mary, the new deal puts her family’s livelihood on the edge. Like many Zambians, she knows the IMF’s empty economic promises all too well.
She never felt the promised “macroeconomic stability”. What her family felt instead was rising prices, shrinking profits from her business, and the never ending uncertainty that the next meal may not come.
Mary says she is always dumbfounded when politicians boast about IMF driven economic policies. She wonders if there is anything to smile about when the cost of living keeps climbing and millions are struggling to make ends meet.
Mary is not the only one going through this, we the majority of Zambians, the 99%, share her story.
The recent IMF programme has pushed us to the margins, and the US‑Israel war on Iran – which enriches the superrich – has worsened our suffering as prices skyrocket. Austerity under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) drove up energy costs, forcing everything higher: bus fares, groceries, daily survival. And with subsidies on fertilizer and farm inputs stripped, vulnerable smallholder families have struggled to grow enough food.
The elite speak of "austerity" as if it were a bitter medicine we were all expected to swallow and get better. But the ones making such decisions aren't the ones feeling the side effects. For Zambia, austerity meant higher tariffs, darker nights without electricity, and a government that spent less on hospitals and schools whilst paying back billions of illegitimate debt.
When experts celebrate abstract percentages, one question remains: why is survival getting tougher and more expensive every single day if the economy is improving?
And when we hear that the government and the IMF are closing in on another deal, one dressed up with promises to “accelerate investment, support job creation, and expand the productive capacity of the economy,” we laugh. We laugh because we have heard all these lies before.
When debt dictates policy, it is the poor who pay. When austerity is prescribed, it is the market women, the workers and the farmers who bleed. Zambia’s future should never be written in Washington boardrooms, it must be claimed in Lusaka’s markets, in the voices of those who refuse to be sacrificed for numbers on a balance sheet.
Under the ECF, the Zambian government suspended the 15% export tax on precious stones and metals barely a month after re-introducing it. A justification was given but make no mistake, this is exactly what happens when economic rules are written in favour of the superrich, who exploit our natural resources, dodge their taxes, and leave the poor to shoulder the burden.
While mining companies rake billions in profits, ordinary Zambians are being crushed by the rising cost of survival. The Basic Needs and Nutrition Basket for a family of five in Lusaka now stands at ZMW 12,051.64 as of April 2026, up from ZMW 11,417.99 just a year ago. While wealth flows out of the ground, hunger grows in the home.
There is a quiet indignity in a mother having to decide which child eats. "Sometimes we only have one meal," is the confession of a nation in crisis. The figures in the JCTR report are not just abstract data; they represent the stark realities that we, the majority of Zambians, are facing.
The betrayal continues in public hospitals where Zambians meet the cruellest irony of all: a prescription for medicine that isn't there. This forces us to the streets searching for pharmacies we cannot afford. Our taxes are spent in repaying illegitimate debt instead of buying drugs.
Zambians must have an economy that puts human dignity before debt sustainability. This means stopping the theft of our resources through corruption, illegitimate debt, flawed policies and taxing the superrich. It means investing in public services that actually work for the people who build this country.
As the 2026 elections nears, the time for hollow promises has passed. We are tired of being fed economic lies. We don't want to hear "investor confidence"; we want medicine in our hospitals, decent jobs in our communities. Zambia needs leaders who understand that an economy is only as strong as the woman standing in Lilanda Market.
Farai Kadyamoto is Fight Inequality Alliance Zambia Communications and Mobilisation Officer