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DBCC asked to review declining ratios to GDP |
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Government budget and finance officials’ initial figures show that the ratios of revenues and expenditures vis-à-vis gross domestic product (GDP) are on the decline for 2008 and 2009.
This is why Finance Secretary Margarito B. Teves, who in a meeting with the inter-agency Development Budget Coordinating Committee (DBCC) on Monday, asked officials to again review the numbers. Based on emerging figures, the government will be collecting higher revenues for the year to plug a portion of the budget deficit.
The Department of Budget and Management, in the same DBCC meeting, said the ratio of expenditures to GDP is declining because of agencies’ absorptive capacity, which is low. While the intention to spend more is there, especially in the disbursement of maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE) and capital expenditures, these funds could not be released immediately.
DBM Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr., also DBCC chair, said that government agencies’ limited absorptive capacity will probably restrict spending even up to the third quarter, despite frontloading expenditures in the first five months of the year. ‘We can allot more funds but disbursements are still problematic," said Andaya. "You may be allowed to spend that much as capital outlay but you don’t actually spend that much, that’s the problem."
The government was still operating on a reenacted budget in the first quarter, which limited the spending on MOOE. The 2008 expenditure program of P1.236 trillion will be higher by at least P75 billion. In nominal terms, GDP for 2008 is P7.481 trillion, higher than estimated in January of P7.284 trillion.
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