GOVERNMENT spending on infrastructure rose by 95.9 percent for the month of April to P65.6 billion, driven by road-construction projects being done by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) in line with the government’s “Build, Build, Build” (BBB) infrastructure program, the budget chief said.
That April 2018 spending represented a near doubling of the P33.5 billion recorded in the same month for 2017.
“Disbursements rose by 43 percent in April 2018, with the huge jump attributed to strong spending on infrastructure in line with the BBB. Infrastructure spending almost doubled, from P33.5 billion to P65.6 billion, in April 2018. Total government spending is at P1.03 trillion for the first four months of the year, posting a 29-percent increase year-on-year,” Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno told reporters on Wednesday.
The government has disbursed a total of P261.2 billion for the month of April, surging by 42.7 percent from the P183.1 billion recorded in April 2017.
“We are more than on track, we are actually overspending in a sense. The limit of our spending is the annual spending, but in terms of quarterly target we are spending more,” he added.
From January to April, the government spent P222.7 billion on infrastructure and capital outlays, posting a growth of 47.5 percent from the P151 billion recorded in the same period for 2017. “We cannot exceed what Congress has allowed us to spend; it’s good we are spending more than we have programmed,” he said.
The road projects undertaken by the DPWH include improvement, upgrading and widening of roads and bridges; construction and improvement of access roads to leading to declared tourism destinations under the Program Convergence Budgeting; construction of flood control and mitigation structures and drainage systems; preventive maintenance projects; and payment of right-of-way claims.
The government plans to spend around P8 trillion to P9 trillion on infrastructure projects under the Duterte administration or until 2022, with the government eyeing to spend P1.1 trillion on big-ticket infrastructure projects this year. The government has listed 75 big-ticket infrastructure projects under its BBB program, that will help usher in the “Golden Age of Infrastructure” in the country.
The budget chief added that the Department of Budget and Management plans to submit the 2019 budget proposal to the President for his signature during his State of the Nation Address (Sona) in July.
“The plan is to submit the budget on the day of the Sona. Next week [there will be] the executive review of the proposals, so we are still on time with our schedule. It’s possible that the figure for 2019 is just equal to 2018,” he added. The national budget for 2018 amounts to P3.8 trillion, while that for 2017 was P3.3 trillion.