Kenyans Should Brace For Increased Food Prices Beyond Elections

The political temperature in Kenya is at its peak. This is despite the fact that elections are still some six months away. A stranger would be forgiven to think that the general election is being held tomorrow or next week. It is the season of politics. It has always been.

Kenyan politicians are traversing across the country claiming to have heard some “strange voices of the people,” calling them to serve and protect them the “enemies lingering in some imaginary darkness, ready to pounce on them like a cheetah.”

But as the Kenya Association of Manufacturers puts it, “When the noise finally dies down, we will still have a Kenya in fiscal distress, a Kenya whose citizens can barely put food on the table – because the breadbasket is increasingly becoming unaffordable.”

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As Kenyans dance and share their bodies with excitement, the cost of living continues to balloon beyond manageable levels. Soon, the poor will have nothing to eat if proper policies will not be put in place to check the growing prices of food and other commodities.

According to KAM, Kenyans should expect food prices to continue rising steeply beyond the elections as they have done for the past 10 years “if we continue to apply regulation and taxation in an uncoordinated, unpredictable, and arbitrary fashion.”

The manufacturers’ body notes that the increase in regulations for example the Nuts and Oil Crops Bill raises the cost of production for many local manufacturers in the food sector, which also affects the farms and agribusinesses in the value and supply chains.

“The farm-to-table journey for many products in Kenya has made the basic commodities for the larger demographic of citizens very expensive. And this is just one example,” said KAM in their latest statement.

There has been a 25.4 percent increase in the consumer price index in the last five years, putting more pressure on Kenyan households, the majority of whom have been adversely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We need to reduce the regulatory burden to manufacturing to support predictability, avoid duplication and multiple taxations. This is usually passed on to the final products and the overall cost is borne by citizens whose purchasing power continues to diminish,” said KAM.

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According to KAM, the main aim of economic regulation should be to induce competition, increase efficiency in resource allocation and allow firms to expand the product space.

Kenyans are finding it harder and harder to set up businesses. We need to make it easier for Citizens to establish and run productive and profitable businesses in every sector.

Doing this will increase the capacity for more businesses to be incorporated into the value and supply chains of the local manufacturing sector, boosting the sector’s productivity.