Out of the Seven Capital Cities pivoting East African Community Member States, Kampala has been found to be the most expensive.
A list compiled by Business Insider Africa, grading the 15 most expensive cities to live in Africa, indicates that one may be compelled to break the bank in order to afford good stay in the Ugandan Capital City.
Kampala did not make it into the top-ten, but managed to close the list at number 15 in the latest statistics from the first quarter of the year 2022 as far as the cost of living index score on the continent is concerned.
The City of Dakar, in Senegal tops the continent’s bill as the most expensive city to live in. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia comes second.
What is the cost of living index?
Simply defined, the cost of living index basically looks at how much it would cost you to live in one city compared to others. It considers consumer goods prices, cost of rent, cost of healthcare and other costs. The definition below by Statista best describes it:
“The cost of living is the amount of money needed to cover basic expenses such as housing, food, taxes, and healthcare in a certain place and time period. The cost of living is often used to compare how expensive it is to live in one city versus another. The cost of living is tied to wages. If expenses are higher in a city, such as New York, for example, salary levels must be higher so that people can afford to live in that city.”
Business Insider Africa
With the Cost of Living Index of nearly 36.0, The Ugandan City of Kampala, beats the other more famous and relatively larger, East African Metros such as Nairobi and Mombasa in Kenya, Kinshasa in the DR Congo and Dar-Es-salaam City of Tanzania.
- Dakar, Senegal: Has a cost of living index score of 50.87.
- Addis Ababa, Ethiopia: Has a cost of living index score of 50.49.
- Abidjan, Ivory Coast: Has a cost of living index score of 47.06.
- Harare, Zimbabwe: Has a cost of living index score of 45.69.
- Johannesburg, South Africa: Has a cost of living index score of 44.87.
- Pretoria, South Africa: Has a cost of living index score of 42.76.
- Gaborone, Botswana: Has a cost of living index score of 42.7.
- Cape Town, South Africa: Has a cost of living index score of 40.98.
- Durban, South Africa: Has a cost of living index score of 40.33.
- Marrakech, Morocco: Has a cost of living index score of 39.94.
- Accra, Ghana: Has a cost of living index score of 38.74.
- Lagos, Nigeria: Has a cost of living index score of 37.33.
- Tangier, Morocco: Has a cost of living index score of 36.85.
- Casablanca, Morocco: Has a cost of living index score of 36.59.
- Kampala, Uganda: Has a cost of living index score of 35.98.
It’s important to bear in mind that the cost of living index is not constant. Six months ago in December 2021, Addis Ababa had the highest index score. Since then, the top position has been overtaken by a different city.
According to the Business Insider, at a time when global events, such as the war in Ukraine, are having direct negative impacts on many African economies, it is not surprising to see increasing uptick in the cost of living index scores across the continent.
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