Kenya’s overall inflation for the month of June increased slightly to 5.7 percent, compared to 5.5 percent in May the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics(KNBS) disclosed on Friday.
KNBS said that Food and non-alcoholic drinks’ Index decreased by 1.60 percent compared to a decline of 0.37 percent in May 2019.
This was mainly due to favourable weather conditions which led to increased food production and subsequently to reduced food prices for some commodities.
“For instance, prices of spinach, Sukuma wiki (kales) and tomatoes recorded decreases of 2.42, 6.87, and 0.36 percent, respectively, in June 2019 compared with the previous month,” KNBS said in a statement issued in Nairobi.
“However, prices of some other foodstuffs like maize grain, beans, green grams and sifted maize flour increased during the same month,” added KNBS.
Over the same period, housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels’ index, increased by 0.05 percent as a result of higher costs of house rents which outweighed notable drops in the cost of electricity and kerosene.
Additionally, the cost of consumption of 50 KWh and 200 KWh of electricity decreased by 0.91 percent and 0.64 percent, respectively, in June 2019.
The Transport Index increased by 0.26 percent, on account of increase in pump prices of petrol and diesel, the statistics body noted.
JK/as/APA