People, Not the IMF

LUSAKA – Fight Inequality Alliance Zambia is urging the government not to anchor the 2027 National Budget to the IMF’s Staff-Level Agreement, warning that the public expenditure blueprint must respond to people’s needs, not Washington’s demands. The IMF announced the staff-level agreement on a new Extended Credit Facility worth about US$1.5 billion on 9 October. It still requires approval by the IMF Executive Board. 

Finance and National Planning Minister, Dr. Situmbeko Musokotwane is scheduled to present the budget in parliament on Friday, 6 November 2026. 

FIA says the Staff-Level Agreement proposals which may include widening the tax base, removing fuel subsidies, building fiscal and external buffers and public expenditure restraint among others will hurt ordinary Zambians who are yet to recover from the economic effects of the just ended Extended Credit Facility (ECF) programme. 

From October to November 2026, Zambia Energy Regulation Board has already  increased the price of petrol and diesel from K25.29/L to K33.06/L and K26.86/L to K34.45/L respectively. Consequently, bus fares and prices of other basic commodities are also going up. 

Mputa Ngalande, Fight Inequality Alliance National Coordinator, says: “The government must this time choose people over the IMF. Letting rigged IMF policies inform the budget will only increase living costs and push millions of households beyond breaking point as it happened over the past three years under the ECF. 

“An economy cannot grow when kitchen tables are empty, local businesses are collapsing and public services are crumbling while the government chases Washington targets.  If the budget does not prioritize the 99% by addressing energy costs, food prices, and public services, then ordinary Zambians will continue paying the price while mining companies and the wealthiest 1%, will continue carting home millions of dollars off their backs”.

FIA Zambia demands that the Minister of Finance and National Planning,  Dr. Situmbeko Musokotwane delivers a budget that addresses the cost of living crisis, and improves the provision of essential public goods and services through fair and progressive taxation. These include:

• Funding Health & Public Services: Fully fund procurement supply chains to end persistent medicine stock-outs in local public clinics, where patients are routinely redirected to expensive private pharmacies for essential drugs.
• Protect Public Education & Youth Enterprise: Ensure sustained, non-partisan funding for free primary and secondary education, expand tertiary bursaries, and establish transparent, merit-based public employment and grant schemes for unemployed youth.
• Cut energy costs: Implement targeted subsidies and price-monitoring frameworks for fuel and electricity to shield micro-enterprises, small business owners, and low-income households from unbearable costs.
• Tax wealth fairly: Introduce progressive taxation on mining companies and corporate wealth such as Windfall tax and making Mineral royalty tax non – deductible.
• Expand social protection : Reallocate public funds toward grassroots social safety nets, including expanding the Social Cash Transfer program to support vulnerable households.

Media Contacts

Farai Kadyamoto I Communications and Mobilisation Officer I farai.kadyamoto@fightinequality.org

About Fight Inequality Alliance: 

Fight Inequality Alliance is a growing global movement organising and mobilising to counter the excessive concentration of power and wealth in the hands of a small elite. FIA unites a wide range of social movements, grassroots and community-based organisations, civil society organisations, trade unions, artists and individual activists from across the world who share a vision and purpose in fighting the structural causes of inequality together. It is currently calling for action on the cost of living around the world – https://fightinequality.org/act-now/sign-this-cost-of-living/