Counting the cost of the oil price crash

January is always a tough month for the wallet. The Christmas revelry is over and the unexpected extra bills only deepen the sense of financial gloom. The first week of 2015 has also been expensive for the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), which like the rest of the international financial community, has had to contend with its own hangover from 2014.

Last Wednesday, agencies reported that the CBK had dipped into its foreign currency reserves, selling off an undisclosed dollars to prop up the shilling, which has hit its lowest rate against the greenback since 2011 - a rate of Sh91 to the dollar. CBK has also spent a tidy sum mopping up excess liquidity from the money markets, making it more expensive to hold on dollars, as a way of protecting the shilling. Not a great start to the year.