National government disburses $619 million in ODA loans

MANILA, Philippines – The government has disbursed a total of $619 million in official development assistance (ODA) loans in the first quarter of the year, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) said yesterday.

NEDA’s Project Monitoring Staff reported that the amount is 145 percent higher than the disbursement level in the same period in 2008.

Of the amount, the government disbursed $267 million in project loans and $352 million in program loans.

Disbursement level is the actual amount of funds released from all programs and projects funded by ODA loans.

“The significant increase in disbursements was largely attributed to the single tranche release of two program loans of $150 million and $200 million funded by the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank,” NEDA Director Roderick Planta said.

He also said the implementing agencies disbursed 90 percent of their target, below the previous year’s disbursement rate of 98 percent.

The first quarter disbursement bought the total cumulative ODA loans to $7.57 billion as of end-March. This financed 87 loans consisting of $6.15-billion (81-percent) project loans and $1.42-billion (19-percent) program loans.

Among the ODA-funded projects are the Northrail Project, National Road Improvement Management Project Phase II, Governance in Justice Sector Reform Program, Agrarian Reform Communities Project II, Mega Bridges for Urban and Rural Development and the Global Food Crisis Response Program Development Policy Operation.

The top source of donor aid for the quarter is the Government of Japan-Japan International Cooperation Agency (GOJ-JICA) with around $3 billion or 39 percent of the loan pie.

This was followed by the World Bank with $1.4 billion in loans and the ADB, with $1.2 billion.

Other sources of ODA are (Germany, Belgium, International Fund for Agricultural Development [IFAD], Kuwait, France, Finland, Nordic Development Fund [NDF], Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries [OPEC], Netherlands, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Swedish International Cooperation Development Agency [SIDA], Spain and the United Kingdom) with some $1 billion and China with around $960 million.

In terms of disbursement ratio, the government’s performance stood at 15 percent for the quarter from 13 percent posted during the same period in 2008. The disbursement ratio is the percentage of actual fund releases to the net loan amount available.

“About 26 program and project loans funded by the ADB, GOJ-JICA and WB have disbursement rates below 50 percent. Factors cited by implementing agencies for the poor disbursement performance of some projects were procurement, financial issues and other concerns,” Planta said.