Government to save P33 million a year with digital release of cash allocations

MANILA, Philippines — The government is expected to save some P33 million annually with the implementation of the online release of notices of cash allocations (NCAs) to various agencies as part of the move to digitize services.

The Department of Budget and Management inked a memorandum of agreement with three authorized government servicing banks for the online release of NCAs.

NCAs are disbursement orders by the DBM to government banks servicing the release of funds to agencies. State agencies are expected to use the NCAs to pay for the cash requirements of their programs and projects.

These banks are the Land Bank of the Philippines, Development Bank of the Philippines and the Philippine Veterans Bank.

Budget chief Amenah Pangandaman said the move is part of the government’s digital transformation initiative toward achieving bureaucratic efficiency.

“Releasing these documents in digital format may seem like a small step but this is a crucial digitalization initiative as it will not only improve ease of doing business,” Pangandaman said.

“It will also bring us an estimated cost savings of around P2.8 million per month or around P33 million per year with the reduced costs for security paper, printing, supplies, and transportation expenses for physical claiming of documents by agency representatives,” she said.

The online release of the NCAs will be carried out through the DBM’s Action Document Releasing System (ADRS), a web-based application that facilitates the release of approved DBM action documents in digital format directly to the authorized users of recipient agencies.

The budget chief emphasized that online release of the NCAs will foster greater transparency and efficiency due to the elimination of unnecessary steps and paper wastage in physically signing, routing, and photocopying of documents.

The issuance of NCAs is the most fundamental aspect of budget execution in the Philippines.

It undertakes almost all public sector disbursements and serves as a primary means by which the national government exercises budgetary control and oversight.

Thus, this is considered to be among the most critical processes to digitalize amid the digital transformation push in the public sector.

Based on the agreement, upon digital release of the NCAs from the DBM, the Land Bank, DBP, and Philippine Veterans’ Bank shall credit the respective modified disbursement scheme sub-accounts and make funds available to concerned agencies.