Socio-Economic Status of Isiolo County with COVID-19

Abstract

The county’s total revenues have been increasing steadily over the years growing by 133 per cent from Ksh 2.55 billion in 2013/14 to Ksh 5.94 billion in 2018/19, being the highest ever. The county’s total revenue however declined during 2019/20 and 2020/21 to Ksh 5.03 billion and Ksh 4.58 billion respectively, following the adverse effect of COVID-19 pandemic that affected various revenue streams. Analysis of county revenues shows that the main source of revenue for the county has been the equitable share from the National Government, which averaged 88.81 per cent of the county’s total revenues from 2013/14 to 2020/21. Monthly cash transfers from the National government have always had an increasing trend from January to June over the years. The share of OSR has been relatively low over the years. On average, it contributed to total revenue averaged 3.06 per cent to the total revenue between 2013/14 and 2020/21. In 2014/15 the county reported Ksh. 563.4 million in pending bills. This declined steadily to Ksh 101.3 million in 2017/18 with development spending related pending bills accounting for 87.7 per cent of this. In 2018/19 and 2019/20 the county did provide figures on pending bills. To ensure continued recovery, the county must now move quickly to tackle the problem of pending bills, 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 and ensure that the ongoing projects are completed before launching new project and clear any pending bills and arrears owed to suppliers.