Before you vote: The truth about rural economies

A section of Bomet County showing a tea plantation in the foreground on February 19, 2014. PHOTO | JACOB OWITI | NATION MEDIA GROUP

Did Jubilee pledge to devolve 40 per cent of government budget to counties?

“We formed URP, and we had very clear set goals. We wanted devolution and we even input in the Jubilee Manifesto, we wanted 40 per cent of the resources to be revolved.” - Bomet Governor Isaac Ruto on Citizen TV, April 19, 2017

The 2013 Jubilee manifesto stated that Jubilee would devolve power by: “Increasing the national budget allocated to the counties from the current 15 per cent to 40 per cent within the next five years.


“You saw today the reports that were in the news, that they are telling us that economic growth was based on things like accommodation, real estate, and such like things, hardly anything in real terms that will put food on the table in the rural areas”


The reports that Mr Ruto is referencing were published during the launch of the 2017 Economic Survey on April 19, 2017, and refer to how certain sectors contributed to economic growth in 2016.

While sectors that employ most people in Kenya had low growth rates, urban-based sectors that employ fewer Kenyans and contribute less to the economy had higher growth rates.

Agriculture, which is the largest wage employer in the private sector, employing 294,500 people in 2016, grew its GDP by four per cent. The next largest sector was manufacturing, employing 274,300 people, which grew its GDP 3.5 per cent.

Transportation and storage, which employed 67,800 people grew its GDP by eight per cent, financial and insurance activities, which employed 65,000 grew its GDP by 6.9 per cent.  Construction, which employed 155,000 people grew its GDP 8.2 per cent.

On the other hand, accommodation and food service, grew 13 per cent, but employed 75,900 people. Information and communications, which employed 108,700 grew 9.8 per cent. Real estate, which employed 4,100 people in the private sector, grew by 8.8 per cent.

With the exception of agriculture, the other activities with high growth rates would be concentrated around and between urban areas. Agriculture, which is the major employer in rural areas had a relatively bad year, growing only four per cent. It’s contribution to the growth of the overall economy also fell from 21 per cent to 15 per cent.

So Mr Ruto is correct to say that a rural county would not benefit from the main sources of Kenya’s economic growth last year.