Kenya’s rate of inflation has been on the rise for the last eight months, largely owing to high cost of food.

According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics, the annual rate of inflation rose to 6.47 percent in October of 2016, from 6.34 percent that was recorded in September (the highest inflation rate since February). The Consumer Price Indices (CPI) increased from 171.56 to 172.62 in the same period.

The CPI was largely driven by the cost of food and non-alcoholic beverages followed by Housing, Water, Electricity, Gas and Other Fuels’ index, which increased by 0.16 percent.

Even though consumers have benefited from a low cost of cooking gas as a result of reduced taxes and capping of wholesale prices, increases in house rents outweighed notable falls in the costs of kerosene and cooking gas.

 “Between September and October 2016, Food and Non-Alcoholic Drinks’ Index increased by 0.96 per cent. This was attributed to increasing prices of several food items which outweighed the decreases,” KNBS notes.

Even with the notable fall in the cost of diesel, the Cost of transport has also become a burden to consumers, with an increase of 0.37 per cent in October 2016 compared to September 2016, which has been attributed to rises in the pump prices of petrol.