NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 15 – National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Njuguna Ndung’u expects the inflation rate to return to the target range of between 2.5 and 7.5 percent.
Speaking in Parliament while reading the 2023–24 financial year budget, Ndung’u said high inflation will cool down in the second quarter of the 2023–24 FY.
“Already the inflation pressures are easing with inflation at 8 percent in May 2023 from the highs of 9.6 percent in October 2022. The inflation rate is expected to return to the target range within the second quarter of the financial year 2023/2024,” he said.
“Inflation rate has remained above 7.5 percent since June 2022 this is driven mainly by food prices and energy prices following adverse weather conditions and high global oil pieces but also compounded by the past effects from the domestic currency depreciation,” he said.
Inflation has remained high in the country, with the May figure standing at 8 percent, attributed to the high cost of food items and transportation.
The Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) showed that inflation went up by a slight margin of 0.1 percent from 7.9 percent in April.
An increase in food and non-food alcoholic beverages (10.2 percent), as well as housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels (9
7 percent) and transport (10.1 percent) contributed to this.
“The overall year on year inflation rate as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was 8.0 per cent, in May,” KNBS says in the latest results.
In the review period, retail prices of sugar, carrots, onions, and beans shot up 22.1 percent, 6.3 percent, 5.1 percent, and 3.6 percent, respectively, between April and May.
Nonetheless, the costs of kale, cabbage, and avocado dropped by 7.4 percent, 5.7 percent, and 4.4 percent, respectively, in the review period.
“The housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels’ index, increased by 0.7 percent between April 2023 and May 2023,” it added.
“This was mainly due to increase in prices of kerosene by 10.2 percent between April 2023 and May 2023.”
“The transport index went up by 1.2 percent between April 2023 and May 2023. This was mainly due to increase in prices of diesel and petrol by 3.8 percent and 1.8 percent respectively.”
