Kenyans watching closely how State will deal with fuel prices

Prices of basic commodities and petroleum products have all been on steroids while incomes have remained stagnant. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

There is a palpable cloud of despair. Families that have always struggled at the base of the pyramid are now groaning in anguish. Like Yeats observed in the poem, 'The second coming', the centre cannot hold. A cursory glance at the Consumer Price Index (CPI) reveals that in the last one year, we have seen a rise in CPI by 3.2 per cent.

Many households have had to readjust their spending, but still, that is not enough. Taxes, prices of basic commodities and petroleum products have all been on steroids while incomes have remained stagnant, thereby occasioning loss of purchasing power. And that is not all. The public healthcare sector across the country is stalling.