PARTLY because of the government operating under the reenacted budget, the releases of Notice of Cash Allocation (NCA) in the first month of the year slid by almost half compared to the same period last year.
From P405.4 billion in January 2018, the NCA releases were significantly down to P211.9 billion in January this year.
“We had to calibrate NCA releases considering the 2019 budget had yet to be passed in January 2019,” Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno said in a statement.
NCAs refer to the cash authority issued by the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) to line agencies to cover the cash requirements of their programs and projects. NCAs are utilized when agencies issue checks or advice to debit account against their cash authority. NCA utilization also includes outstanding checks, or checks issued by the agency but not yet encashed at the bank by the creditor/s.
Despite this, the budget department said a higher NCA utilization rate was posted in January 2019 compared to January 2018 as 60 percent of the NCA releases were already utilized. This is equivalent to P127 billion of the P211.9-billion NCA releases.
In January 2018, the NCA utilization rate was only 33 percent, or P133.8 billion of P405.4 billion.
Diokno said the higher utilization rate means agencies are quicker on their feet in implementing programs and projects in the first month of the year.
“We expect the NCA utilization rate to increase in the coming months considering NCAs lapse at the end of every quarter,” he said.
In January 2019, P172.2 billion of NCA releases were for line departments, while P39.7 billion were sourced from Special Purpose Funds. In terms of NCA utilization, cash disbursements amounted to P111.3 billion, while P15.6 billion were outstanding checks.
Diokno earlier said they expect the proposed P3.757-trillion national budget to be transmitted to Malacañang by March 1. The country should have a new budget by the end of the first quarter.
Due to Congress’s failure to pass the budget before yearend, the government is operating under a reenacted budget at least for the first quarter of the year.
“As we anticipate the passage into law of the 2019 General Appropriations Act [GAA], the DBM is devising a catch-up plan in the release and utilization of funds. In coordination with implementing agencies, we will cover all bases from allotment releases, NCA releases, to NCA utilization and disbursement plans,” he said.