Data fails to link Ruto claim on housing jobs with milk shortage

The Government’s claim that jobs created under the affordable housing programme have driven up milk consumption and contributed to the current shortage is being questioned over the data used to support it.

Recently, President William Ruto and his economic adviser, David Ndii, attributed the stock-outs to increased purchasing power among construction workers, arguing that more people can now afford milk.

“There are too many people who can afford milk because we have close to another two million people who were not working and now are, and 1.1 million of them are in the affordable housing space,” Ruto said, echoing earlier remarks by Ndii.

However, available employment statistics do not independently establish how many of the jobs cited were created by the affordable housing programme, how many remain active or how much the workers earn.

From a pedestrian perspective, this argument makes sense. However, on closer inspection, the premise is flawed.

For example, the 1.1 million job claim.

According to the 2026 Economic Survey Report, 2.1 million more informal sector jobs were created in 2025 than in 2022, when President Ruto took office. This rose from 15.96 million to 18.11 million.

From his argument, it means that of the 2.1 million jobs, half were created by the affordable housing programme.

For the formal sector, when compared to 2022, the number of new jobs created in 2025 was 315,000 more.

While these figures have always been thrown around whenever the government wants to justify the 1.5 per cent affordable housing levy deductions, no data has ever been presented on how many of these jobs are active.

Further, there is no data on their pay scale to show how much these workers are being paid, which would help ascertain their purchasing power.

This is important because,e according to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), the price of unpacketed fresh cow milk shot up by 11.9 per cent in the last year to October 2026, rising from Sh72 to Sh80.

A packet of 500ml milk also went up from Sh56 to Sh64 in the period. Due to the shortage, it has gone up to Sh70.

A day before President Ruto met with the private sector, his economic advisor Ndii raised a question on the milk shortage debate. If there is no reduction in supply, and there is a sharp increase in both production and processing, what then explains the stock-outs?

“If you go to any of our construction sites, where we are doing affordable housing, or any construction site, you will find crates of milk there,” he argued.

It is not clear why other food items such as maize flour or rice have not witnessed similar demand to further cement the claim of purchasing power.

Despite the data gaps, this claim might have some truth if alternative data on sugar and soft drink production is considered.

From the KNBS Leading Economic Indicators for August 2026, production of soft drinks between January and August in 2026 was 11.93 per cent higher compared to the same period in 2025.

This rose from 425.9 million litres to 476.7 million litres.

“Production of soft drinks declined from 60.5 million litres in July 2026 to 60 million litres in August 2026,” reads the KNBS document. “However, cumulative production increased to 476.7 million litres during the first eight months of 2026, compared with 425.9 million litres recorded during the corresponding period of 2025.”

Likewise, production of sugar, a sweetener used in tea together with milk,  went up 50.56 per cent from 406,807 metric tonnes to 612,494 metric tonnes.

KNBS shows that the amount of milk submitted for processing dropped 1.2 per cent for the January-August period in 2026 compared to 2025.  This is from 683.8 million litres to 675.4 million litres.

The increase in production of soft drinks has previously been used by government officials, specifically Ndii and National Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi, to explain how well the economy is doing.

The majority of Kenyans do not consume marketed milk but buy it through the informal market. Data from the 2026 Economic Survey Report by KNBS shows just 18.4 per cent of milk production is sold through the formal channels.

In 2025, the volume of marketed milk crossed the billion litres mark.

“Milk production increased by 3.5 per cent to 5.5 billion litres in 2025. Similarly, the volume of marketed milk production increased by 11.5 per cent to 1.0 billion litres during the same period,” reads the report.