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Recently, Susan, my wife, returned home from shopping, surprised that the same amount of money bought less. That day, Abraham Moti, whom Susan and I regard as our son, returned from his engineering studies, saying his matatu fare had risen.
One felt the pressure at the market; the other on the road. Our conversation left me wondering: were these separate inconveniences or clues to a larger Kenyan story? Thankfully, I turned to the July 2026 inflation report just released by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. They confirmed annual inflation at 6.5 per cent.
Yet the deeper I examined the tables, the more the headline gave way to a revealing story. Food and transport alone contributed 4.1 percentage points, almost 63 per cent of total inflation.
Add housing, and these necessities accounted for about 71 per cent. Susan’s shopping basket and Moti’s matatu fare were not separate experiences. Together, they revealed the rising cost of survival.
