The cost of fuel and electricity in Kenya have driven the country’s inflation rate to 9.2 percent in September.
Kenya has been though a lot lately. First was a years-long campaign mood that saw a great rift between former President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto.
Fast forward to August 2022, Ruto is elected President and vows to eliminate fuel subsidy as he focuses on paying off debts and boosting small and medium sized entreprises.
Then there is a ravaging drought across the country that has caused acute shortages of food across the country.
In the middle of all these, the war in Ukraine has caused rising fuel costs and reduced supply of farm inputs. Still grabbling with the disruption of supply chains as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, things can’t get any worse for Kenya.
Earlier in August, the Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC) increased prices of electricity.
As a result of these factors, Kenya’s inflation rate has been rising sharply, nearly hitting double digits in September.
This is according to the latest data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) that indicates that the onset of the short rains that cooled the prices of vegetables and tomatoes were not big enough to offset price increases for energy and other key basic food commodities such as maize flour, rice and sugar.
This is only the second highest inflation in Kenya for a decade. The worst inflation was experienced in 2017 when the country faced an extreme drought and a weakening currency.
The government’s decisions to get rid of subsidies on super petrol coupled with reduced subsidies on diesel and kerosene, this month, has powered up the rate of inflation after the cost of electricity and petroleum products registered double-digit increases.