Socio-Economic Status of Kiambu County with COVID-19

Abstract

The county total revenue has significantly increased over the years as the Government focus on enhanced services to the citizens. In Kiambu County, total revenue increased from Ksh 7.8 billion in 2013/14 to Ksh 15.48 billion in 2020/21 with an average growth rate of 14.06 per cent. During 2020/21, the County received 100 per cent of the annual budget allocation, significant improvement from 91.4 per cent received in 2019/20. This highlights the commitment of the National Government to support county operations through timely financing. Conditional grants are a major source of revenue for financing county operations and has been growing over the years. The County receives conditional grants from the National Government and development partners mainly from World Bank and Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), European Union (EU) and Sweden. The share of OSR to the total revenue has similarly been robust. Pending bills in Kiambu county generally follow an upward trend. In 2014/15 the county reported Ksh 609.0 million in pending bills. This increased to Ksh. 920.3 million in 2016/17 with development spending related pending bills accounting for 60.0 per cent of this. To steer the county towards achieving its budgetary objective and development goals contained in the ADPs and CIDP, the county government need to mobilize more finances from OSR to increase the available revenues for budgetary operations, seek for more funding in form of grants from development partners to cater for the critical development projects in the county, ensure that the ongoing projects are completed before launching new project and clear any pending bills and arrears owed to suppliers and ensure the ongoing infrastructure project are completed and suppliers paid within the specified timelines for optimal returns to investment and to spur private sector activity.