The Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection (JCTR) says the pronouncement by the Bank of Zambia (BOZ) that inflation rate will continue to increase was expected.

Speaking in an interview with Money FM News, Centre Executive Director Innocent Ndasha said the pronouncement by the Central Bank is as a result of the Kwacha losing too much value against major convertible currencies.

Mr Ndashe explained it will take some time for the Kwacha to gain strength against major convertible currencies in a shortest possible time due to a number of factors.
“There reasoning is simple and it was expected, the major part at the center of the projection is that the Kwacha has lost so much value against major convertible currencies due to a number of factors” Mr Ndashe said. 

He notes that the challenge of debt servicing is having a negative impact on the local currency.
Mr Ndasha says long hours of load shedding have impacted negatively on productivity in the country.
“We still have a challenge of high debt levels, so our servicing of the external debt is having negative impact on the local currency” He said.

“But we also see that the continued long hours of load shedding has tended to impact negatively on production activities in the country” 
Yesterday the Bank of Zambia Governor Dr Denny Kalyalya announced that the Country’s inflation rate is expected to continue increasing until food supply improves.