"This brief attempts to explain why consumer prices rose so dramatically in 2008, why they collapsed on the world market and why the consumers in Botswana have not seen significant benefits from that price decrease on world markets. This paper uses publicly available data from the statistics offices of Botswana and her neighbors, the Republic of South Africa (RSA) and Namibia as a basis of comparison. Several important basic commodities will be considered including maize, wheat flour, sugar and rice."