Nairobi, May 1 (BNA) Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said on Sunday that his government will raise the country’s minimum wage by 12% immediately to help workers cope with rising consumer prices, driven in part by the war in Ukraine.
“There is an urgent case for a revision of the minimum wage in order to protect our workers from further erosion in their purchasing power,” a statement from the president’s office quoted him as saying at Labor Day celebrations in the capital, Nairobi.
He said the increase was necessary because the minimum wage had not been revised in three years, and the cost of living had also gone up.
The minimum wage in Kenya is 13,500 Kenyan shillings ($116.68) per month.
As in other countries across the region, Kenyans are grappling with soaring prices for commodities, including cooking oil and fuel, which were exacerbated by supply concerns after the Russian invasion of Ukraine that began on February 24.
Inflation in the east African country rose to 6.47 percent on an annual basis last month, from 5.56 percent in March, the statistics office said.
In the past month, the country suffered from a fuel shortage, as traffic came to a standstill in some parts of Nairobi as motorists joined long queues outside gas stations.
M