By Joann Villanueva/PNA
CLARK, Pampanga — Budget and Management Secretary Benjamin Diokno on Monday assured that government will continue to exercise prudent spending but clarified that underspending will never happen under the current administration.
In his speech during the consultation event with the private sector and other stakeholders dubbed “Sulong Pilipinas” here, Diokno cited that infrastructure investments surpassed what was initially programed for the first nine months this year.
Department of Budget and Management (DBM) data show that as of end-September this year, infrastructure spending amounted to PHP570.8 billion, 7.2 percent higher than the PHP532.6 billion set for the said period.
Diokno reiterated the current government’s bid to increase infrastructure investments to as much as seven percent of domestic output by 2022 from the current four percent level, which in turn is already an improvement from around two percent in the past.
In terms of budget utilization, disbursement totaled PHP2.489 trillion as of last September, higher than the PHP2.427 trillion programmed for the period.
“We have finally put an end to underspending. Underspending is the waterloo of past administrations,” he said.
Diokno said the current government was able to address underspending after it shortened the validity of the national budget from two years to just one year “and judging by the results it’s working.”
Meanwhile, the Bureau of Treasury (BTr) on Monday released the fiscal performance report as of end-October 2018, which showed a budget deficit of PHP438.1 billion, 87 percent higher than the PHP234.9 billion same period last year.
The jump was traced to the 25 percent rise of government spending to PHP2.796 trillion against the PHP2.241 billion expenditures in end-October 2017.
Revenues also rose but at a slower pace of 18 percent to PHP2.358 trillion against the PHP2.006 trillion in the first 10 months last year.
For last October alone, spending also registered faster expansion of 35 percent to PHP306.6 billion against the 20 percent jump of revenues to PHP246.8 billion.
Revenues in October last year amounted to PHP205.1 billion while expenditures totaled PHP226.9 billion.
