90% of budget spent – DBM

The Aquino administration has already disbursed nearly 90 percent of its budget for this year amid efforts to catch up on spending.

Department of Budget and Management Secretary Florencio Abad said Wednesday that some P1.462 trillion in allotments, representing 88.9 percent of the General Appropriations Act of P1.645 trillion has already been released at end-October.

Of the released amount, P822 billion were releases from this year’s GAA; while the balance of P640 billion came from automatic appropriations, continuing appropriations from the 2010 budget and the unprogrammed fund.

As to the recipients, P865.13 billion, or 59.17 percent has been released to various national government agencies, P302.57 billion, or 20.7 percent went to local government units, P222.44, or 15.22 percent for interest payments, and P71.85 billion, or 4.91 percent to government owned and controlled corporations.

In October alone, the DBM released P50.86 billion because of the quick releases under the P72.11-billion Disbursement Acceleration Plan.

“We anticipate that the government’s Disbursement Acceleration Plan would significantly speed-up public spending during the last quarter of the year,” Abad said.

He, however, admitted that despite efforts to speed up spending in October the P300 billion intended budget deficit for the year is unlikely to happen. Thus, he expects a budget gap that is much narrower than intended.

Last month, releases to various departments and agencies, which were charged against built-in appropriations amounted to P34 billion. Releases charged against special purpose funds amounted to P12.5 billion, while those of the automatic appropriations reached P4.36 billion.

Besides those under the Disbursement Acceleration Plan, releases during October included those for the Department of Education-related projects worth P6.26 billion, Department of Public Works and Highways’ various infrastructure projects amounting to P3 billion, and GOCCs subsidy and equity infusion of P6.5 billion.

At end-October, the unreleased balance under the new GAA amounted to P111.5 billion, which is 11.9 percent of the total program, with P45.5 billion for the departments and P66.1 billion for SPFs.

To date, the unreleased balance falling under automatic appropriations amount to P139.9 billion, representing fourth quarter requirements for interest payments and motor vehicle user charge fund. –Katrina Mennen A. Valdez, Reporter, Manila Times