With June 2012 almost coming to an end we should expect Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) to release Consumer Price Indices (CPI) and rates of inflation for May 2012 soon.

To recap on May’s CPI and rates of inflation, the CPI increased by0.26 per cent from 133.74 in April 2012 to 134.09 in May 2012. The increase was attributed to increase in housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuel’s index and the transport index. However, the food and non-alcoholic drinks’ index  fell.

Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuel’s index increased by 0.22 per cent between April and May 2012. The prices of firewood, charcoal and house rents slightly went up by 6.0 per cent while the prices of electricity and cooking gas declined by 0.4 per cent.

The transportation index rose by 0.79 per cent between April 2012 and May 2012 due to higher costs of taxi charges, public transportation fares and petrol.

Food and non-alcoholic drinks’ index fell by 0.18 per cent between April 2012 and May 2012. The decrease was mainly due to fall in prices of some food products such as sukuma wiki, cabbages, spinach, onions and oranges in May compared to April 2012. There was though a significant rise in the prices of maize flour, maize grain and wheat flour among other food items over the same period. The price increases were however outweighed by the decreases and the resultant overall food index was lower than in the previous month.  

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