While the cost of items on the food basket declined marginally in August compared to July, Kenyans are still paying more compared to the same period last year.
In its monthly review, the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics on Friday announced monthly inflation dropped to 5 per cent in August compared to 6.27 per cent in July.
“This decline was mainly attributed to favourable weather conditions and follows a trend that has been observed over the last five months,” KNBS said in a statement.
In August, the prices of significant food items including sukuma wiki (kales), potatoes, cabbages, carrots, tomatoes and maize grain loose decreased by 8.01, 7.81, 6.78, 6.01, 4.89 and 2.80 per cent, respectively.
“Decrease in prices of these commodities outweighed observed an increase in the cost of other foodstuffs, thereby causing a decrease in the food index,” the statistician said.
However, compared to last August when monthly inflation stood at 4.04 per cent, this month’s commodity prices were much higher compared to the same period last year.
During the review period the housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels’ index, decreased by 0.10 percentage points, mainly as a result of a decrease in prices of some cooking fuels.
"The cost of a 13 kg cylinder of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) for instance, decreased by 0.98 percentage points from Sh2,171.47 in July to Sh2,150.27 in August," KNBS said.
The transport index also reported a decrease albeit marginal due to the reduction in pump prices of diesel and petrol over the review period.
