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- Jan 20, 2016
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Capital Economics, one of the world’s leading economic research firms has said it has doubts about the accuracy of GDP figures released by the Kenyan Government, which suggest the economy is very robust than it seems.
John Ashbourne, the Sub-Saharan Africa economist at the London based independent consultancy firm wrote in a recent note to investors: “The lead-up to Kenya’s general election in August is coinciding with rising scepticism in the country about the quality of official economic figures. The dispute has touched a nerve – a cabinet minister recently threatened to “fight” anyone who questioned his government’s economic success.”
Ashbourne says that they are worried that the Government may be misrepresenting the health of East Africa’s largest economy.
“Kenya’s official growth numbers have become “suspiciously stable” in recent quarters and which sometimes contradict the available activity data.”
The past two years have been very difficult for most African economies. In 2016 a painful combination of external headwinds mainly as a result of lower commodity prices and bungled policymaking which pushed many of Africa’s largest economies into recession.
Growth in the continent as a whole fell to a 22-year low. Kenya, however, seems to have sidestepped this regional slowdown. The research further notes that the marked stability of Kenyan growth raises questions about the quality of the figures from the stats office (KNBS) considering that the country’s GDP growth has traditionally fluctuated significantly from one quarter to the next.
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In addition, Capital Economics is not the first to have concerns about the capabilities of the KNBS. The World Bank has rated Kenya’s statistical capacity as the second worst among the large African economies (only oil-rich Angola performs worse). Kenya is also one of the few countries in Africa to have received a lower score last year than it did a decade earlier as shown below;
Source: Capital Economics raises concerns over accuracy of Kenya’s official GDP figures
John Ashbourne, the Sub-Saharan Africa economist at the London based independent consultancy firm wrote in a recent note to investors: “The lead-up to Kenya’s general election in August is coinciding with rising scepticism in the country about the quality of official economic figures. The dispute has touched a nerve – a cabinet minister recently threatened to “fight” anyone who questioned his government’s economic success.”
Ashbourne says that they are worried that the Government may be misrepresenting the health of East Africa’s largest economy.
“Kenya’s official growth numbers have become “suspiciously stable” in recent quarters and which sometimes contradict the available activity data.”
The past two years have been very difficult for most African economies. In 2016 a painful combination of external headwinds mainly as a result of lower commodity prices and bungled policymaking which pushed many of Africa’s largest economies into recession.
Growth in the continent as a whole fell to a 22-year low. Kenya, however, seems to have sidestepped this regional slowdown. The research further notes that the marked stability of Kenyan growth raises questions about the quality of the figures from the stats office (KNBS) considering that the country’s GDP growth has traditionally fluctuated significantly from one quarter to the next.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
In addition, Capital Economics is not the first to have concerns about the capabilities of the KNBS. The World Bank has rated Kenya’s statistical capacity as the second worst among the large African economies (only oil-rich Angola performs worse). Kenya is also one of the few countries in Africa to have received a lower score last year than it did a decade earlier as shown below;
Source: Capital Economics raises concerns over accuracy of Kenya’s official GDP figures
