Kenya’s inflation rate has dropped slightly in August compared to the
previous month due to lower vegetable and flour prices. PHOTO | FILE |
NMG
Kenya’s inflation dropped slightly in August compared to the previous month due to lower vegetable and flour prices.
The rate fell to 4.04 per cent, from 4.35 per cent in July, the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) has said.
Food
takes up the largest share (36 per cent) of the basket of goods that is
used to calculate inflation, making it the main driver of the cost of
living.
“Between July and August 2018, food and non-alcoholic drinks’ index decreased by 0.66 per cent.
This
was due to decrease in prices of some foodstuffs outweighing increases
recorded in respect of others,” the KNBS said in a statement.
Tomato price drop
Tomatoes recorded the steepest price drop of 21 per cent to Sh72.88 per kilo, followed by kale (sukuma wiki) which dropped 21.3 per cent to Sh45.3 a kilo.
Other
food items whose price dropped include maize flour, down 20.9 per cent
to Sh45.30 a kilo, and maize grain which recorded a 17.6 per cent drop
in price to Sh42.39 a kilo.
Carrots also recorded a slight drop in price of 2.9 per cent to
Sh61.19 a kilo with beans falling slightly to Sh106.9 from Sh107.66 per
kilo the previous month.
During the period, the price
of diesel dropped by 0.5 per cent to Sh103.6 a litre while kerosene,
used mostly by low-income households for lighting and powering cooking
stoves, recorded a slight drop of 0.9 per cent to Sh85.9 a litre.
Homes that consumed 200-kilowatt hours (kWh) in August paid Sh4,392, a 6.6 per cent rise from Sh4,122 the previous month.
At
4.04 per cent, the August inflation is within the Central Bank of Kenya
(CBK) preferred range of between 2.5 per cent and 7.5 per cent.
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