CLARK, Pampanga, Philippines — The Department of Finance (DOF) yesterday expressed uncertainty on whether the government may still be able to catch up with its infrastructure spending plan for 2019, considering the delay in the approval of the national budget as well as the upcoming election ban.
In an interview, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez said while the government has a plan to regain its spending momentum once the budget is passed, agencies’ ability to implement projects would still depend on weather conditions in the latter part of the year.
He said the government already lost the opportunity to construct infrastructure projects in the first three months, which is the most ideal period to implement projects, due to the delay in the passage of the P3.757 trillion proposed budget.
“Yes (we have a plan), but you know when time is lost, it’s lost no matter how much you want to catch up, especially since the weather has been so good for the past almost three or four months,” Dominguez said on the sidelines of the site inspection of the Clark international airport expansion project.
Moreover, Dominguez said the government may not be able to implement new projects until June, with the election ban already set to start on March 29.
“The election ban starts two days from now. How can you award the contract now? We can’t get exemption (for projects) which we did not start. And we could not start because we don’t have a budget,” he said.
The enactment of the 2019 General Appropriations Act (GAA) was further delayed due to a deadlock in Congress, as both the House of Representatives and Senate accused each other of making last-minute insertions in the budget.
A development only came on Tuesday, with Senate President Tito Sotto signing the enrolled copy of the General Appropriations Bill.
The finance chief reiterated that the government loses the opportunity to spend around P500 million a day due to the absence of a new budget for 2019.
He also said these setbacks would negatively impact the country’s economic growth prospects.
Earlier, the Development Budget Coordination Committee decided to slash the government’s gross domestic product (GDP) target to a range of six to seven percent, from the original goal of seven to eight percent. This is based on the assumption that the 2019 national budget would not be enacted until April.
The inter-agency committee also cut the government’s disbursement program to P3.78 trillion this year, from the previous goal of P3.83 trillion.