Exposed: Counties with highest jobless rates spend the least on development
Mr Nicholas Njuguna feeds fish on his Kangai farm in Mwea, Kirinyaga County, on July 5, 2023. The project was funded under the county’s Wezesha Empowerment Programme.
Counties led by governors Johnson Sakaja (Nairobi), Kimani Wamatangi (Kiambu), Abdullswamad Nassir (Mombasa) and Kawira Mwangaza (Meru) with the majority unemployed people spent the least on development.
The four counties, which accounted for one third of the 2.7 million jobless Kenyans by 2019, are among 16 regions the Controller of Budget reported to have spent below 10 per cent of their development budget in the first nine months of the 2022/23 financial year.
Economists have suggested that when growth picks up, employment also goes up, which piles pressure on counties to spend more on development, including manufacturing, to spur economic growth.
The other regions that had little development spending as a percentage of total expenditure despite the unemployment crisis are counties headed by governors Gideon Mung'aro (Kilifi), Wavinya Ndeti (Machakos), Ken Lusaka (Bungoma), Simba Arati (Kisii), George Natembeya (Trans Nzoia) and Ochilo Ayacko (Migori).
Counties led by governors Mutula Kilonzo Jnr (Makueni), Julius Malombe (Kitui), Godhana Dhadho (Tana River), Erick Mutai (Kericho), Simon Kachapin (West Pokot), and Cecily Mbarire (Embu) also spent little on development from July 2022 to March 2023.
And collectively, the 10 counties with the highest number of the unemployed (1.5 million) – accounting for more than half of jobless Kenyans – are earmarked to get a third of this year’s Sh385.4 billion shareable revenue allocated to the counties based on the County Allocation of Revenue Bill 2023 that is before the Senate.
These are Nairobi (Sh20 billion), Kiambu (Sh12.2 billion), Garissa (Sh8.2 billion), Turkana (Sh13. 1 billion), Mombasa (Sh7.9 billion), Wajir (Sh9.9 billion), Nakuru (Sh13.6 billion), Mandera (Sh11. 6 billion), Kajiado (Sh8.3 billion) and Meru (Sh10 billion).
Statutory requirement
Counties have, however, made progress by allocating more resources to development, which saw the aggregate development allocation – 33.1 per cent – in the period under review conforming to the statutory requirement. The only challenge is the low absorption.
At least 30 per cent of counties' budget should be allocated to development programmes, according to the Public Finance Management Act.
The combined county governments’ budgets approved by the county assemblies for 2022/23 financial year amounted to Sh512.92 billion, with Sh169.92 billion (33.1 per cent) allocated to development and Sh343.0 billion (66.9 per cent) to recurrent expenditure.
But counties only spent Sh29.73 billion on development, representing an absorption rate of 17.5 per cent, which is a decrease from 22.8 per cent reported in a similar period the previous year.
While spending on salaries declined slightly from the previous year’s 63.6 per cent to 61.1 per cent or Sh209.95 billion of the annual recurrent budget, the wage bill remains high.
The increasing wage bill in the counties mainly contributed to high employment levels as the number of county employees increased from 146,300 in 2015 to 190,000 in 2019, according to the Economic Survey 2020. But it is in spending more on development that will spur economic growth in the counties and consequently create more jobs to address the unemployment crisis.
Nairobi had the highest number of unemployed persons, according to a July 4 update of the analytical report on labour force published by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics. The jobless in the capital are estimated at 16 per cent of the 2.7 million unemployed Kenyans based on the 2019 census.
Other counties accounting for a majority of the unemployed are Kiambu (6.3 per cent), Garissa (6.2 per cent), Turkana (5.5 per cent) and Mombasa (5.3 per cent). Lamu had the lowest proportion of the unemployed population at 0.3 per cent, the report showed.
Males accounted for the majority of the unemployed in all the counties except in Nairobi where females were the majority at 51.6 per cent of the unemployed population.
Who are the unemployed?
The report defined unemployed persons as those who reported that they did not have a job, and were actively looking for work in the previous four weeks of the study and were available for work.
In every 10, six are unemployed in Garissa. The report placed the total number of the unemployed population between age 15 and 64 at 2.7 million. Of these, 1.5 million are male and females account for 1.1 million.
“This was 80 per cent above the 1.5 million unemployed persons reported in 2009. Majority (50.4 per cent) of the unemployed population were in the urban areas,” the report said.
“Those aged between 20 and 24 bore the brunt of unemployment at 22.5 per cent of the unemployed. This was followed by those between the age of 25 and 29 years who accounted for 21 per cent of the unemployed.”
Also, 21.9 per cent of the youth between the age of 15 and 24 are unemployed, as are17.4 per cent between the age of 18 and 34.
Urban dwellers
The unemployment rate remains high in urban areas, standing at 19.8 per cent against 10.5 per cent in the rural areas.
Of the total population in the country, 18.9 million are not in the labour force (inactive), according to the report. It said individuals between the ages of 18 and 34 are the working generation, accounting for 74 per cent of the country’s labour force.
To capture the data on working children, the lower age limit was set at five years. The working age between 15 and 64 accounted for 88.6 per cent of the total active population.
Youths aged between 18 and 34 constituted 45.2 per cent, while children (aged between five and 17) accounted for 6.6 per cent of the active population, the report reveals.
The survey found that the dependency ratio since 2009 to-date has been on a steady upward trajectory across the country.
The high dependency rate illustrates that most families are relying on relatives with a source of income.
