Public transport across Kenya was paralysed on Monday as privately owned “matatu” minibuses — the country’s main form of mass transit — went on strike in protest at a 23.5% diesel price hike imposed by the government last week. The increase, the government said, was a direct response to global oil prices driven by Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Protesters in Nairobi barricaded roads with bonfires from early morning, attempting to halt cars and motorbikes. Schools closed and the capital’s usual central business district congestion vanished. The strike spread to Mombasa, Nakuru, Eldoret and Nyeri.
“They do not want to listen to the citizens when we say the prices are too high,” 22-year-old Alex Koome Mwenda told AFP. Thousands of commuters were left stranded.
Treasury and economic planning minister John Mbadi defended the increases on NTV. “The strike is completely uncalled for, even though the prices of petroleum products have risen,” he said. “This is a war that we have not caused.” Critics argue Kenya has high fuel taxes that could be cut, but the government relies on them to service high debt levels and a strained budget.
Kenya, like Sri Lanka, imports almost all of its fuel through Gulf supply chains routed via the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil normally passes. The Kenyan strike marks one of the clearest demonstrations yet that the Hormuz blockade is translating into politically destabilising consumer-price shocks in developing economies. Sri Lanka has taken the opposite tack, with the Treasury absorbing fuel costs at Rs. 57 billion over three months to keep pump prices steady. The International Energy Agency this week warned that coordinated oil-stock releases are depleting faster than expected.
Source: Newswire / AFP.
