The average price of a 2KG packet of maize flour declined from Sh135.87 in April to Sh129.64 in May owing to the intervention of the government/FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya, May 31 – The country’s year –on-year inflation has risen to 11.70 percent in May from 11.48 percent last month, on the back of higher prices of food despite Government’s maize flour subsidy.
The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics records this as an increase of 0.75 from April.
Food prices were noted to have risen slower at 1.26 percent compared to April’s 3.55 percent due to the ongoing rains.
“There was a significant decline in the prices of sukuma wiki, cabbages, potatoes and spinach mainly due to ongoing rains,” the statistics office has said.
The average price of a 2KG packet of maize flour declined from Sh135.87 in April to Sh129.64 in May owing to the intervention of the government.
Overall, year on year food inflation rose by 21.52 percent in May, owing to an increase in the food index where prices of sugar, milk, maize grain and other food items which outweighed the decreases.
Other indices noted to have increased include the housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuel indexes – by 0.06 percent – and the transport index which increased by 0.10 percent.
“There was an increase in the cost of kerosene, cooking gas and charcoal. The rise in the transport index was mainly on account of increase in the pump prices of petrol.”
A decrease was however noted in the cost of electricity which was attributed to lower charges of foreign exchange adjustment.
The inflation rate first rose outside of the government’s preferred band of 2.5-7.5 percent in February, after food prices went up due to drought, which left an estimated 2.7 million people in need of food aid.
