Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III
MANILA -- The Philippine government’s 6 percent to 7 percent growth target this year will get a boost from the plan to spend about PHP1.14 trillion for infrastructure projects, among others, in the last quarter of the year.
In a briefing Wednesday night, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III expressed confidence in the attainment of the growth target despite setbacks in the first half of the year due to the impact of the delay in the approval of this year’s national budget.
Domestic growth, as measured by gross domestic product (GDP), averaged at 5.5 percent as of June this year.
It slipped to 5.6 percent in the first quarter from 6.3 percent in the last quarter of 2018. It further weakened to 5.5 percent in the next three months.
This is the reason for the implementation of a catch-up spending program primarily tasked to the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and the Department of Transportation (DOTr).
In the first nine months of the year, government expenditures grew 5.5 percent year-on-year to PHP2.626 trillion from the previous year’s PHP2.489 trillion.
Dominguez said government disbursement as of last month accounted for 98 percent of this year’s PHP2.685-trillion programmed expenditure.
“However, this was weighed down by the contraction recorded by the disbursements of infrastructure and other capital outlays, which were mainly due to the delay in the passage of the 2019 national budget and the election ban,” he said.
This year’s national budget was signed into law only last April.
Dominguez said infrastructure and other capital outlay reached PHP546.3 billion, or about 92 percent of the program in end-September, but he noted that this is 4.2 percent lower than the PHP570.8 billion in the same period last year.
“Total program disbursement for 2019 is PHP3.769 trillion. To attain this target, the government needs to disburse PHP1.14 trillion, or 30 percent, this fourth quarter. Based on the updates of our main infrastructure agencies, we are confident that we are going to hit our spending target this year,” he said.
The finance chief said DPWH officials are confident that the agency can hit the agency's PHP725 billion spending target this year.
He said DPWH has so far disbursed PHP424.7 billion.
“Secretary (Mark) Villar assured that the PHP300.3-billion target for the last quarter is attainable,” he said.
Dominguez said DPWH is introducing reforms that will address right-of-way issues and accelerate the implementation of big-ticket projects.
He said the agency aims to inaugurate this year the first phase of the Central Luzon Link Express project, the Tarlac-Pangasinan-La Union Expressway, the Ciudad de Victoria interchange overpass bridge, and the bypass road in Bulacan.
The actual disbursement of DOTr as of September reached PHP43.7 billion.
Dominguez said the agency “expects to disburse PHP51.37 billion in the last quarter to fulfill 99 percent of its commitment of PHP82 billion for 2019.”
He noted that with catch-up spending for the infrastructure projects and the deceleration of inflation rate, domestic growth “is expected to expand at a higher clip over the remaining months of 2019.”
“We will intensify our efforts to restore last year's upward momentum in our growth rate,” he added. (PNA)
