The Department of Finance (DOF) has instructed the government’s implementing agencies to come up with a catch-up plan as spending fell below target in the first half of the year.
“We held a meeting sometime before we left for Malaysia. We talked to agencies, we asked them to come up with their own catch-up plan. The problem is they are underspending,” finance secretary Benjamin Diokno said in a press conference late Friday.
“I’m worried that we are not meeting our expenditure target, I’m not happy with (the) smaller deficit,” he added.
In the first half of the year, the government underspent by 6.6 percent, with expenditures amounting to P2.41 trillion versus the P2.58 trillion goal.
This resulted to a budget deficit of P551.7 billion for the said period, 28.49 percent below the first semester program of P771.5 billion.
Operating expenses, which exclude the government’s interest payments, fell below program by 6.59 percent in January to June.
Diokno said the two agencies that recorded the slowest spending performances are the Departments of Information and Communications Technology, and of Transportation.
“We are still optimistic they will be able to catch up (in the second half of the year),” Diokno said.
The finance chief cited delays in procurement for the underspending performance, as well as birth pains, with the administration being around one year in office.
“Sometimes congress made a lot of changes in the budget, so there are new projects introduced in the budget. And since they are new, maybe they do not have feasibility study, detailed engineering, so they cannot start building (right away), so I think that’s one of the reasons also,” the finance chief said.
The government’s total expenditures in January to June also only inched up by 0.42 percent from the previous year’s level of P2.4 trillion.
Meanwhile, revenues surpassed the program by 2.72 percent, amounting to P1.86 trillion versus the target of P1.81 trillion.
Year-on-year, it recorded an increase of 7.68 percent from last year’s P1.73 trillion.
In June, both revenues and expenditures contracted by 7.91 percent and 2.59 percent, respectively.
