‘No more sufuria protests’: Mbadi says cost of living falling as shilling holds firm against dollar

Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi has said that Kenya’s cost of living is easing, citing falling inflation and lower prices of basic commodities.

As the government launched the 2026/27 budget-making process in Nairobi on Monday, Mbadi dismissed claims that the reduction in inflation was linked to technical changes in economic reporting, insisting the decline was real and reflected on household budgets.

“Remember that in 2022, we had inflation rates at unimaginable percentages, 9.6%. Now it has come down to 4.1. To me, clearly, that also reflects a reduction in the cost of living,” he said.

According to the CS, data shows that prices of essential goods such as maize flour, fuel, and sugar have eased compared to the highs experienced between late 2022 and early 2023.

“The cost of living is not determined in political rallies; it will not be determined in churches. It is determined by real data collected, collated, and disseminated,” he said.

He added that the public protests of early 2023 over high prices, often symbolized by citizens carrying cooking pots on their heads, have since died down.

“Today, how many people are in the streets with sufurias on their heads? I don’t see them. It means now the cost of what was being cooked by the sufuria has gone down,” Mbadi said, referencing June 2023’s cost-of-living protests mobilised by the opposition, in which Kenyans marched with cooking pans on their heads.

Acknowledging that the economy remains under pressure from high debt service obligations, with nearly half of ordinary revenue going to interest payments, Mbadi, however, noted that decisive government interventions had helped avoid a potential debt default and stabilized the currency.

“Early last year, there was panic in our economy. The panic was that we were likely to default on paying our debt. There was a 2 billion US dollar Eurobond coming to maturity by June, with no clear plan to pay it. The shilling lost ground, almost 165 to the dollar,” Mbadi recalled.

He said measures taken to restructure liabilities and manage debt had since seen the currency recover to 129.2 against the dollar, where it has remained steady for over a year.

“The reality is, it is real. If you want to know that it is real, look at the forex reserves,” he said, pointing out that import cover has risen to 5.2 months, up from 3.8 months a year ago and just 2.3 months in 2022.

The finance minister said the government would continue working to reduce debt risks while anchoring economic stability on sound financial management.