{"id":93217,"date":"2025-08-26T05:07:18","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T05:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/93217\/"},"modified":"2025-08-26T05:07:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T05:07:18","slug":"mbadi-says-cost-of-living-falling-as-shilling-holds-firm-against-dollar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/93217\/","title":{"rendered":"Mbadi says cost of living falling as shilling holds firm against dollar"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Nelson<\/a> By
\n
\n Nelson Ledama
\n <\/a>
\n Published on: August 25, 2025 03:02 (EAT)
\n \"\u2018No <\/p>\n

Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi. | PHOTO: @KeTreasury\/X<\/p>\n

Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi has said that Kenya\u2019s
\ncost of living is easing, citing falling inflation and lower prices of basic
\ncommodities.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cRemember that in 2022, we had inflation rates at
\nunimaginable percentages, 9.6%. Now it has come down to 4.1. To me, clearly,
\nthat also reflects a reduction in the cost of living,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

According to the CS, data shows that prices of essential
\ngoods such as maize flour, fuel, and sugar have eased compared to the highs
\nexperienced between late 2022 and early 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe cost of living is not determined in political rallies;
\nit will not be determined in churches. It is determined by real data collected,
\ncollated, and disseminated,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He added that the public protests of early 2023 over high
\nprices, often symbolized by citizens carrying cooking pots on their heads, have
\nsince died down. <\/p>\n

\u201cToday, how many people are in the streets with sufurias on
\ntheir heads? I don\u2019t see them. It means now the cost of what was being cooked
\nby the sufuria has gone down,\u201d Mbadi said, referencing June 2023\u2019s cost-of-living protests<\/a> mobilised by the opposition, in which Kenyans marched with
\ncooking pans on their heads.<\/p>\n

Acknowledging that the economy remains under pressure from
\nhigh debt service obligations, with nearly half of ordinary revenue going to
\ninterest payments, Mbadi, however, noted that decisive government interventions
\nhad helped avoid a potential debt default and stabilized the currency.<\/p>\n

\u201cEarly last year, there was panic in our economy. The panic
\nwas that we were likely to default on paying our debt. There was a 2 billion US
\ndollar Eurobond coming to maturity by June, with no clear plan to pay it. The
\nshilling lost ground, almost 165 to the dollar,\u201d Mbadi recalled.<\/p>\n

He said measures taken to restructure liabilities and manage
\ndebt had since seen the currency recover to 129.2 against the dollar, where it
\nhas remained steady for over a year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is, it is real. If you want to know that it is
\nreal, look at the forex reserves,\u201d he said, pointing out that import cover has
\nrisen to 5.2 months, up from 3.8 months a year ago and just 2.3 months in 2022.<\/p>\n

The finance minister said the government would continue
\nworking to reduce debt risks while anchoring economic stability on sound financial
\nmanagement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Nelson Ledama Published on: August 25, 2025 03:02 (EAT) Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi. | PHOTO: @KeTreasury\/X…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,46314,46311,3363,1294,46313,46312,56,54,55,4540],"class_list":{"0":"post-93217","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-citizen-digital","10":"tag-citizen-tv","11":"tag-cost-of-living","12":"tag-economy","13":"tag-john-mbadi","14":"tag-shilling","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom","18":"tag-us-dollar"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}