Soaring inflation means consumers, and especially low income and poor families struggle to afford key food and non-food items, while meeting other households’ expenses such as rent, transport, school fees, water and electric, among other bills.
Effects of both the rising cost of living and unemployment have seen families do without some basic necessities or make shifts in spending as costs outstripped incomes for majority who derive a living from work in the informal sector.
The consumer rights lobby group is of the view that it is high time for government to consider the widening mismatch between current market prices and people’s purchasing power.
Schools’ reopening for the third term Monday is expected to induce a further rise in costs of essentials as most rush to the market to fill their stock.
The gauge of routine changes in the cost of living nationally shows the index increased to 7.5 per cent last month from 5.8 per cent in February after prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages increased by 10.2 per cent on annual basis and 5.1 per cent on monthly change.
Fuel costs in the latest review are the most expensive ever recorded in the country in recent years, and will likely see producers and manufacturers, yet again, hike prices of products to levels beyond reach of majority in the low income earner and the poor brackets.
