Kenya’s inflation rate has risen to 6.91% in September, a nineteen-month high, driven by higher food prices, transport and fuel charges.
This is the fifth consecutive rise in the month-on-month inflation rate which has been on an upward trend since May this year.
Inflation stood at 6.57% in August as the Central Bank of Kenya warned of risks arising from both domestic and international markets.
Central Bank of Kenya on Inflation
The increase in September was mainly driven by rising prices of commodities under food and non-alcoholic beverages which rose 10.63%, transport 9.21% and housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels which went up by 6.08% between September 2020 and September 2021.
“The month-to-month Food and Non-Alcoholic Drinks’ Index increased by 0.11 per cent between August 2021 and September 2021. This was mainly attributed to increase in prices of some food items, which outweighed the decrease in prices of others,” – KNBS.
This comes as CBK Governor Dr Patrick Njoroge reaffirmed on Wednesday during a post-Monetary Policy Committee that the regulator has sufficient tools to ensure price stability.
“Our mandate is price stability. If we allow inflation to just surge into the worst case scenario, we will be missing on our mandate. That is not a scenario we are willing to do nothing about. There will always an active scenario which is when we come in and actually take policy action to stop inflation from surging,” said Dr Njoroge.
Year-on-year increases in Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages index were noted in tomatoes, sukuma wiki, spinach and cabbages where the price per kilogram went up 16.34%, 16.93%, 20.99% and 30.76% respectively.
Within a year to September 2021, a litre of petrol and diesel shot up 27.5% and 22.1% respectively.
The Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels’ Index, increased by 0.91 per cent between August 2021 and September 2021.
“This was mainly attributed to increasing in prices of kerosene/paraffin, electricity and gas/LPG.”
However, Kenyans experienced a slight decrease in house rent during the same period.
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