Government infra spending rises in Aug

MANILA, Philippines - Government infrastructure spending climbed in August, raising hopes the upward trend would continue throughout the year, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said.

Capital outlays hit P41.5 billion in August, up 29.6 percent from the previous year and marked an acceleration from just 0.8 percent in July.

July was the first full month of the Duterte administration.

Broken down, actual infrastructure disbursements rose a faster 33.7 percent to P34 billion. The balance of P7.6 billion represented transfers to local government for similar purposes.

So far, the government already spent 58.3 percent of its 2016 budget for infrastructure. This translates to P382.1 billion, up 37.6 percent year-on-year.

“This resulted from the continuous roll-out of road infrastructure programs of the DPWH (Department of Public Works and Highways)...,” the DBM said in a statement yesterday.

In particular, DBM took note of releases that went to construction and rehabilitation of road networks as well as funding for “convergence programs” with other agencies.

DPWH utilized 99 percent of its notices of cash allocations to pay for contracted services in August, separate DBM data showed.

In addition, funding for schools, hospitals and irrigation projects for other agencies also contributed to the uptick.

Sought for comment, Alvin Ang, economist at Ateneo de Manila University, said projects left hanging during the elections could have driven the increase.

“They could have used the obligations left by previous administration for the road networks and bridges,” Ang said in a phone interview.

“The only possible new ones here were from irrigation, which we could traced from (Agriculture Secretary) Manny Piñol’s statement he would release funds for it,” he added.

DBM, however, disagreed, saying the bulk of agency budget had already been released and are poised to be spent in the last four months of the year. 

“With almost all of the funds already available to line agencies, program and project implementation during this period should come in full swing,” the agency said. 

“This could hopefully speed up government spending further for the rest of the year,” it added.