Subsidies to govt corporations surge

STATE subsidies to nonfinancial government owned- and controlled-corporations (GOCCs) rose by double digits in the first eight months this year, the Department of Finance said.

Data from the department showed that the amount extended to those entities reached P11.97 billion, or about 18.6 percent higher than the P10.02 billion in aid the national government extended in the same period last year.

In August alone, however, subsidies went down 32 percent to P1.5 billion from P2.2 billion last year. The bulk of subsidies that month at P502 million went to the Philippine National Railways (PNR).

The PNR is undergoing a modernization program worth at least $932.037 million. Of the total project cost, $885.435 million would be funded by a loan from the Export-Import Bank of China, while the remaining $46.602 million would be financed through a bond issuance by state-owned National Development Co. (NDC).

The government spent another P320 million for the National Livelihood Development Corp., while the National Housing Authority got P250 million.

The Philippine Heart Center, Lung Center of the Philippines, National Kidney and Transplant Institute, and Philippine Children’s Medical Center received a combined P101 million in budgetary support, while other GOCCs got P292 million.

Expenditures at end-August picked up 15.5 percent to P949.14 billion from last year’s P822.03 billion. For August alone expenditures reached P117 billion, or P201 million lower than the previous year.

Excluding interest payments, total disbursements inched up 21 percent to P745.7 billion from last year’s P616.5 billion. Interest payments slid 1 percent to P203.4 billion from the previous year’s P205.5 billion.

Revenues for the eight-month period slipped 6.5 percent to P739.1 billion from last year’s collection of P790.3 billion. In August alone, revenues reached P95 billion, or 20.1 percent lower than last year’s P118.9 billion.

The Bureau of Treasury earlier reported that the national government’s budget deficit widened by 1,406 percent in August because of poor tax collections and weak imports.

The bureau said the national government’s fiscal position reversed to a shortfall of P22 billion last month from the P1.7-billion surplus last year.

The August performance led the eight-month fiscal gap to jump 561.5 percent to P210 billion from P31.7 billion in the same period last year.

With four months to go, the government is P40 billion shy of hitting its full-year deficit ceiling of P250 billion. –Lailany P. Gomez,Reporter, Manila Times