Gov’t launches real-time budget, treasury management system

THE GOVERNMENT launched its first real-time public financial management system on Wednesday, which is designed to streamline the monitoring of agencies’ transactions.
The web-based Budget and Treasury Management System (BTMS) will fast-track, standardize, and automate the process of obligating, disbursing, and reporting of all government expenditures, doing away with the manual filling of forms.
The Department of Budget and Management (DBM) and the Bureau of the Treasury partnered with Globe Telecom, Inc. and Canadian software company Free Balance Inc. for the P495-million project.
“This will revolutionize the way we do things, further improving the ability to deliver public services. It will strengthen the performance of public financial management functions to allow us to keep an eye on government financial status in real time. It will give us a more efficient, reliable public financial management system,” Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno said in a speech in Manila on Wednesday.
“With this BTMS, all the expenditures will be recorded real-time. They will be able to know how much money was spent for this bridge, this school, this hospital, in real time… Paying the contractor is very easy for the government, it will be able to manage the funds and call the attention of all agencies involved if they are behind schedule,” DBM Undersecretary Lilia C. Guillermo said.
“Agencies would be able to really have a more efficient budgeting process, or spend less time on it. We can see how much is the spending of the agency, and the spending patterns,” National Treasurer Rosalia V. de Leon said.
The DBM issued Circular Letter 2019-4, ordering all national government agencies to adopt the BTMS by July.
The circular said that agencies should input all high-value transactions amounting to P1 million and above in the BTMS by July.
The BTMS was piloted in 2017, starting with selected line agencies the Department of Works and Highways, Department of Health, Department of Trade and Industry, and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. — Elijah Joseph C. Tubayan