ECONOMICS
26-03-2022 by redazione
The exponential increase in inflation since the beginning of the year in Kenya has led to an unprecedented anarchy in product prices.
It went from 0.8% in January to 8.9% in February, with a number of concomitant causes such as the continuing drought in many agricultural areas of the country, and it's time to take action or limit the damage that wild trade is starting to do, with serious repercussions on the Kenyan lower middle classes.
The government yesterday announced a crackdown on traders who have been raising prices of basic commodities, in a bid to protect consumers from what the Competition Authority has described as "extortion".
An operation of controls across the country is expected to bring back to mild advice traders who, faced with inevitable increases such as those of milk (due to climate problems) and seed oil (due to blocked imports from Russia and Ukraine), have begun to increase any product in a deliberate and often reckless manner.
It is to be verified how and how much this process starts from those who sell the raw materials and how much the price increase concerns only the final distribution, stores and supermarkets.
The Government's final idea is to carry out a survey of producers' production costs and make recommendations on appropriate raw material prices.
The results will help the regulator to impose a price ceiling on all raw materials and services in the country.
It will be necessary to understand how much the collateral increases in palm oil, for example (33%), which is a domestic product and not affected by foreign imports, are dictated by real emergency conditions, as well as that of sugar (20%). Can the drought be enough to justify such "crazy prices" that significantly affect the daily spending of Kenyans?
The consumer association has published a list of products whose prices will have to be watched. In a difficult situation where climate change is compounded by a war, elections in August, and rising oil prices regulating transportation, we are just missing the vultures of large-scale distribution and retail.
NEWS
by redazione
Autumn always brings as a gift the ailments not cured in the previous season and...
NEWS
by Freddie del Curatolo
The number of unemployed in the last quarter is close to 3 million and prices are rising by an...
Coronavirus effect but not only that, the fact is that the Kenyan Shilling has reached an ...
NEWS
by redazione
For those arriving in Kenya in the coming days, a cakewalk. For those living there and particularly Kenyan...
NEWS
by redazione
From today petrol, diesel and paraffin cost more in Kenya.
The...
NEWS
by redazione
The U.S. dollar yesterday reached a new record high against the Kenyan shilling, which is at an...
NEWS
by redazione
After a few days of complete lack of supermarket desks and local shops in Malindi and on the north coast of Kenya, packs of 1 or 2 kilograms of mail flour, which are indispensable to prepare the ugali, national national...
NEWS
by redazione
We hoped so in our pre-Christmas articles and also in the New Year forecasts published on this site: the...
Thirteen major hotel companies will open in Kenya over the next five years.
According to an "Outlook Hotel" report, published by the PwC consulting agency, by 2021 the country, and most of all Nairobi, will have 2400 new rooms.
Sheraton, Ramada,...
NEWS
by redazione
The fuel emergency in Kenya, which has created several inconveniences throughout the country, including...
by redazione
Kenya is once again thinking, as it did a few years ago in the mind of its then leader, Uhuru...
EDITORIAL
by Freddie del Curatolo
We had hoped for it and did not predict it out of sheer superstition, even when things looked like they might...
ECONOMICAL CRISIS
by Freddie del Curatolo
Despite desperate manoeuvres by the government, the Kenyan shilling last weekend recorded its...