How Higher Fares Drove April’s Inflation to 5.6%

Good evening. It’s Brian from The Kenyan Wall Street. The surge in fuel prices has culminated into higher transport costs for many Kenyans, thus driving up the overall inflation rate in April. 

But first…Let’s take a look at the markets

I&M Bank Opens KSh 10 Billion Note Offer at 12.20%

By Harry Njuguna

From the recent tightening cycle that began with successive rate cuts by the CBK, Kenya’s corporate debt market has steadily shifted from sporadic issuance to a near-continuous pipeline of offers. Into this window steps I&M Bank, opening a KSh 10 billion tranche of a wider KSh 20 billion medium-term note programme priced at 12.20%, a subordinated structure aimed at strengthening capital while funding onward lending. The timing is deliberate: government bond yields remain elevated, deposit rates lag, and investors are increasingly chasing yield in well-rated corporate paper after a run of oversubscribed deals from EABL, Safaricom, and KMRC. What emerges is a market signal that credit risk is being actively repriced, and private balance sheets are now competing directly with sovereign paper for investor attention.

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Also on Capital Markets 

The Push for an Expanded Alcohol Tracking System

By Brian Nzomo

From the earliest days of Kenya’s excise regime, alcohol taxation has been a game of partial visibility, where formal distillers complied and the rest of the market simply disappeared into informal channels. That blind spot has now widened into what authorities estimate as a KSh 120 billion annual drain, much of it tied to second-generation spirits and illicit brews that move through loosely tracked distribution networks. Stakeholders in the industry  are now asking Parliament to consider a sweeping expansion of excise stamps and a digital track-and-trace system that would follow every unit of alcohol from production line to retail shelf, collapsing the boundary between legal and unrecorded supply. If adopted, the system would mark a shift from episodic enforcement raids to a continuous fiscal surveillance architecture aimed at reconstructing a market that has long existed in the statistical darkness.

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How Higher Fares Drove April’s Inflation to 5.6%

By Fred Obura

From the first weeks of the year, fuel prices had been climbing, but it was in April that the pressure finally surfaced in the most ordinary part of Kenyan life: the commute. Transport inflation accelerated to 6.5% month-on-month, with matatu, bus and boda boda operators quickly repricing fares as petrol and diesel surged past KSh 197 per litre and operating margins tightened. The effect was immediate and uneven as Nairobi routes such as Karen–CBD rose to about KSh 120, inter-city trips like Nairobi–Kisumu edging toward KSh 1,900, and boda boda fares in smaller towns crossing KSh 120 for short rides. As transport costs feed into everything from food distribution to household budgets, April’s inflation story is ultimately about macro price pressures meeting the daily, unavoidable cost of movement.

Read the article here >>>>>

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