Lawmaker threatens underspending government agencies with budget cuts in 2012

MANILA, Philippines - Isabela Rep. Rodolfo Albano has warned under-spending agencies of severe budget cuts in 2012 if they would not spend their present allocations for important projects.

“In the first place, why would these departments and agencies ask for huge budgets when they cannot actually spend these during the entire year?” he said.

“Government is hard pressed on raising money to meet the budgetary requirements of these departments and agencies but they under-spend their budgets. It might be because they do not know how to implement their projects or have no well-planned projects like infrastructure,” he added.               

A report of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) showed that government spending from January to April has been low – almost 20 percent lower than the programmed spending.                                                         

Citing the report, Albano said the government failed to spend P100 billion of the programmed P561.36 billion and that the government posted the highest ever one-month surplus in 25 years – P26.3 billion in April.                                                    

“It is clearly a case of under-spending which is not beneficial to our economy and the people,” he said.

Albano, a member of the House committee on appropriations, said he would question the under-spending in the forthcoming hearings on the government’s proposed budget for 2012.                                                                            

He said the people should not be misled into believing that under-spending is beneficial to the country because of the huge savings. 

“Figures may look good on paper, but what economic value does it have when no infrastructure is being built – no road, no bridge, no port, no highway – that could generate jobs and stimulate economic activity,” he said.                                      

Albano also noted that the under-spending was caused mainly by deceleration in infrastructure spending.                             

“This deceleration in infrastructure spending is affecting even our schoolchildren who are forced to hold classes in overcrowded classrooms because of classroom shortage,” he said.                                                                                                

He said that no less than Education Secretary Armin Luistro has revealed that public schools need an additional 66,800 classrooms for school year 2011-2012.            

Under-spending in infrastructure also aggravates the unemployment problem.                                                             

“Imagine how many construction workers would have been employed if P50 billion in infrastructure projects were implemented from January to April,” he said.                                                  

Palace Communications Group Secretary Ricky Carandang said the under-spending in the first quarter of the year was caused by the extensive scrutiny of the programs for funding.

“But the evaluation of projects is done and (Budget) Secretary (Florencio) Abad said that we will see an acceleration in government spending beginning in the second quarter,” he said. – With Aurea Calica