Economic survey 2021 set for release

The report will reveal the extent of damage to the economy and the jobs market by effects of Covid-19. [Courtesy]

Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) will tomorrow release the data capturing performance of the economy and the jobs market after a five months delay.

KNBS director-general Macdonald Obudho yesterday said that the official statistics including the Annual Economic Survey 2021, Leading Economic Indicators report, the Quarterly Gross Domestic Product (QGDP) report, quarterly jobs report and other official statistics will be released.

The report is supposed to be released on April 29 every year.

The economic survey report is an annual publication prepared by the KNBS that provides socio-economic information covering five years.

Mr Obudho was taken to task over delay to release the report when he appeared before Public Investment Committee (PIC).

The committee chaired by Mvita MP Mvita Abdulswamad Nassir was responding to concerns raised by Garissa Town MP Aden Duale who wanted to know the status of the report.

Duale said KNBS had breached provisions of the Statistics Act and the Constitution by either delaying or refusing to release the reports.

Garissa Town MP Aden Duale. [File, Standard]

"The bureau has persistently delayed releasing the leading economic indicators and although the report was due in February, it is yet to be published,” he told Parliament.

Obudho however attributed the delay to the late submission of data by some respondents in economic sectors.

He argued that some stakeholders were not content with the figures at the time and wanted the survey to be repeated.

"In March, the survey was done and completed, we shared our findings but it appeared that there were some errors that were not taken care of and that had to be corrected," he said.

He said KNBS worked with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund which provided a number of Missions to look at what the bureau was doing.

“When we shared findings, there was a feeling there were sectors that were not taken care of. Because of what happened in March, we were told to relook into our work by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), and the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA),” Mr Obudho said.

He said stakeholders including CBK, KRA, KIPPRA, World Bank, and IMF have given the KNBS findings a clean bill of health and the Economic Survey 2021 will be released on Wednesday.

The report will reveal the extent of damage to the economy and the jobs market by effects of Covid-19.