Kenyans will now be forced to pay a 30 percent increase in bus fares after the new government did away with the fuel subsidy program. The Energy Petroleum and Regulatory Authority (EPRA) announced new prices, increasing Super Petrol by 20 shillings.
Kenyans are now buying a liter of petrol at 179.30 shillings and 176 shillings in Nairobi and Mombasa respectively, an increase of 20 shillings per liter from the last review on August 14 when the commodity was 159.12 shillings.
A liter of diesel will now run at 165 shillings from 140 shillings, while a liter of kerosene will retail at 147. 94 shillings up from 127.94 in August 2022 in Nairobi. Tough times ahead.
According to EPRA, Fuel subsidies have been partially retained for diesel and kerosene at 20.82 and 26.25 shillings respectively, according to the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (EPRA).
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The current government that had promised to make the cost of living easy for millions of Kenyans, seems to have meant the opposite for the first thing they did was to drop the subsidy, increasing the prices overnight, hitting hard on the millions of Kenyans.
As Kenyans prepare to dig deeper into their pockets to pay for hiked bus fares, other prices of common goods down the value chain will be affected. With the increase in fuel prices, the inflation rate is likely to rise affecting consumables such as maize flour and cooking oil.
Proponents of the drop in subsidy say that the fuel subsidy had cost the country about 144 billion shillings, the cash they say “only went into the pockets of a few cartels.” Media outlets have reported that the Treasury will “save” at least 9 billion this month after the drop of the subsidy program.
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