The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) has urged government agencies to further ramp up their procurement and implementation of projects to avoid underspending.
In a statement on Monday, May 29, Budget Secretary Amenah F. Pangandaman said that the DBM already released P2.982 trillion or 94.8 percent of the total agency-specific budget to various national government agencies.
In sum, Pangandaman said the DBM has released P4.518 trillion or 85.8 percent of the P5.268 trillion national budget as of April 30.
On the other hand, the utilization rate of government agencies was recorded at 90 percent from January to April, equivalent to P1.175 trillion of the Notices of Cash Allocations (NCAs).
NCAs are cash authority documents issued by the DBM to the account of agencies or operating units through the authorized government servicing banks to cover the cash requirements of the agencies for their programs and projects.
“We all know that our national budget is the lifeblood of all government programs and projects. The faster we disburse and utilize our funds, the faster we can procure and implement our projects,” Pangandaman said.
She said DBM needs to instill discipline in its national government agencies by putting the money into agencies that can really implement them.
“That’s why we want to remind our agencies to avoid underspending, given our very limited fiscal space,” Pangandaman said.
“We have to remember, as early as the start of the year, we have emphasized that only implementation-ready proposals will be included in the 2024 Budget,” she added.
Data from the Bureau of the Treasury showed that government disbursements grew nine percent to P373.9 billion in April from P343.0 billion last year .
The bureau said this was owing mainly to the subsidy release to Philippine Health Insurance Corp., larger capital expenditures of the Department of Public Works and Highways and Department of Transportation, as well as higher interest payments for the month.
The spending growth was tempered by the decline in transfers to Local Government Units due to lower National Tax Allotment shares.
Total expenditures from January to April reached P1.5 trillion, inching up by 1.3 percent from P1.444 trillion in the same period a year ago.