This archive report was first published on 28 August 2019.
On August 28, 2019, a cheaper cooking gas plan aimed at reducing reliance on kerosene and charcoal was suspended, leaving low-income households to bear the brunt of rising prices.
According to data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), prices of kerosene and charcoal have doubled since 2016, with paraffin prices surging 116.93 percent to average Sh102.26 per litre in the January-June period of the year compared with a similar period in 2016 when the cost averaged Sh47.14.
A four-kilogramme tin of charcoal retailed for an average of Sh143.02 in the review period, an 81.84 percent jump compared with three years ago.
The rise in kerosene prices is largely linked to last September's imposition of Sh18 levy to deter use of the fuel to adulterate diesel, while charcoal prices have been climbing sharply on the back of an anti-logging ban in public forests from February 2018.
Under the Project Mwananchi, more than four million households were to be supplied with a six-kilo cooking gas cylinders and burners for a discounted price of Sh2,000 in three years, with refills costing Sh840.
However, the project was suspended in June 2018, a month after the Treasury had allocated Sh2 billion towards purchase of the cylinders, dubbed Gas Yetu, in the year starting July 2018, following the initial Sh1 billion budget a year earlier.
