Socio-Economic Status of Embu County with COVID-19

Abstract

The county’s revenues have maintained an increasing trend as the county focused on implementing major development projects to improve the livelihoods of its people. Total county revenues grew from Ksh 3.60 billion in FY 2013/14 to Ksh 6.41 billion in FY 2020/21 with an average annual growth rate of 6.8 per cent. The increase was supported by the growth in equitable share from the National Government and conditional grants from development partners over the same period. Conditional grants continue to be a major source of financing County operations. 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. Pending bills in Embu County generally follow an upward trend increasing from Ksh. 596.6 million in 2014/15 to 1,818.7 million in 2019/20. To steer the county towards achieving its budgetary objective and development goals contained in the ADPs and CIDP, the county government needs 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.