By Joann Villanueva/PNA
MANILA — The Duterte government is bent on implementing the cash-based budgeting system beginning this year, in an effort to modernize the country’s budget system.
In his weekly “Breakfast with Ben” briefing Wednesday, Budget and Management Secretary Benjamin Diokno said they are ready to implement this system even if lawmakers have deleted this proposed provision in the bicameral version of the 2019 budget.
He also stressed that they are “prepared” to take the issue to court should lawmakers question their decision to go ahead with the cash-based budget system.
“We’ll go to the Supreme Court. OSG (Office of the Solicitor General) will argue in behalf of the government,” he said when asked how firm the government is in implementing this change.
Diokno explained that measures to improve the government’s budget system has been in place for two years.
“We’re doing it already but we just want to make sure that it is institutionalized. Meaning that when we leave after 2022 the next president will not undo the reforms that we have done. That’s really the purpose of the budget modernization,” he said.
Diokno said “content and form of the budget is an executive decision.”
He said the Administrative Code of 1987 outlines the use of cash budget.
Citing Section 36, Chapter 5, Book VI of Executive Order No. 292 or the Administrative Code of 1987, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), in a press release Wednesday, said “an operational cash budget shall be implemented to ensure the availability of cash resources for priority development projects and to establish a sound basis for determining the level, type and timing of public borrowings”.
“We included cash budgeting as a General Provision in the proposed budget because we want this to be the usual practice from hereon in,” Diokno said, noting that a two-year transition will be made starting 2020.
Under the cash-based appropriations, budget of the government agencies will be utilized only for the year, with a three-month leeway in the following year.
Under the obligations-based budget system, appropriations are valid for two years.
Diokno said the obligations-based appropriation “discourages investors from accepting projects.” This, as payment to contractors cannot be made within the year.
He, however, pointed out that with the annual cash-based appropriations, contractors will be pressured to finish their contracts within a year.
No more manana habit, he added.
