Harare ranks 4th expensive African city

HARARE has been ranked the fourth most expensive African city to live in out of 15 sampled cities, as authorities accuse businesses of conniving to push up the cost of living.

This is according to Statista, a German company specialising in market and consumer data.

The latest ranking comes when Zimbabweans are struggling to make ends meet in the face of skyrocketing prices of basic goods and services in the country.

Senegal's capital Dakar was ranked the most expensive city to live in Africa, followed by Ethiopia's Addis Ababa, Ivory Coast's Abidjan, Harare and South Africa (SA)'s Johannesburg.

"The prices of goods and services have generally increased across the world, with global events (such as the war in Ukraine) are having direct negative impacts on many African economies, causing the increase in cost of living in these countries," Statista said.

Statista is Germany's leading statistics company and offers a unique contact point on the web for numbers, data and statistic

Other listed cities in their descending order are Pretoria in South Africa, Gaborone (Botswana), Cape Town (SA), Durban (SA), Marrakech (Morocco), Accra (Ghana), Lagos (Nigeria), Tangier (Morocco), Casablanca (Morocco) and Kampala in Uganda.

Economic analyst Prosper Chitambara said it was not surprising that Harare had been listed as one of the most expensive cities.

"It's not quite surprising that Zimbabwe is the fourth most expensive city to live on the African continent, especially given the high levels of inflation, which is number two after Sudan," he said.

"So obviously that goes to show that the cost of living in Zimbabwe has been rising. Of course, Harare being the capital city of Zimbabwe, it's not surprising that it's ranked among the most expensive cities to live in Africa."

Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development programmes manager John Maketo weighed in, saying Zimbabwe had not been spared the effects of the Russia-Ukraine war.

"For Harare residents, these exogenous factors landed heavily due to pre-existing vulnerabilities and absence of sufficient social protection mechanisms, hence the growing cost of living," he said.

Harare was also ranked the fourth worst city to live in on the continent by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) recently.

EIU, among other factors, considered stability (level of crime and conflict), healthcare (presence and quality of healthcare) as well as environmental/cultural factors (climate, religious restrictions, food and drinks).