THE Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said it expects improved spending performance from the government on 2020 budget items, due to the cash-based budgeting system currently in force.
It added that the budget, which will finance the National Expenditure Plan (NEP), is free from the sort of illegal insertions that delayed the 2019 budget.
Assistant Budget Secretary Rolando U. Toledo told BusinessWorld said visibility on spending will likely improve because cash-based budgeting forces agencies to spend on priority items with the required clearances, within a certain period and with specified prices.
“Even before the implementation in the preparation of the budget we require agencies that the programs and price should be ready for implementation (due to the rules of) cash based-budgeting,” he said.
“So far, we see that the cash-based budgeting system improves spending… with this system, implementing agencies are required to, of course, deliver the projects and pay for the projects within the fiscal year,” Mr. Toledo said during a briefing Wednesday.
The government operated on a re-enacted 2018 budget for more than a quarter in 2019 because that year’s budget was signed in April, dampening spending on new items and slowing the economy’s growth. President Rodrigo R. Duterte signed into law last month a measure extending the validity of the P3.6-trillion 2019 budget by a year, overriding cash-based budgeting rules.
The DBM added that the 2020 budget complies with the rules, contrary to fears that the spending plan contains so-called “pork barrel” items. The DBM confirmed no provisions were vetoed by the President following the release late Tuesday of the President’s budget message.
Earlier this week, Senator Panfilo M. Lacson expressed his suspicions over certain items allegedly inserted in the spending plan after the budget was signed by the President.
“Based on the review by the DBM, we didn’t find any item of appropriation provision or proviso that is strongly objectionable vis-a-vis existing laws and policies and which cannot be addressed by conditional implementation or general observation,” the DBM’s Director for Legal Service Ryan S. Lita said during the same briefing.
In the President’s 2020 Budget message released on Tuesday, Mr. Duterte listed 11 items for conditional implementation to comply with existing laws. — Gillian M. Cortez
