The national government disbursed P1.545 trillion in 2024, surpassing its full-year program, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) reported Wednesday.
The total disbursement exceeded the P1.473 trillion spending program by 4.9 percent or P72.4 billion last year, the report posted on the DBM website showed.
“This was equivalent to 5.8 percent of gross domestic product, well within the five to six percent target for 2024 and sustaining the 5.8 percent outturn in 2023,” the DBM said.
It was also 8.9 percent higher than the P1.419 trillion disbursed in 2023.
“This was credited mainly to the accelerated infrastructure spending of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) for its accelerated implementation of construction activities, particularly from carry-over or previous years’ projects, progress billings from completed ongoing infrastructure projects, as well as the direct payments made by development partners for foreign-assisted rail projects of the Department of Transportation,” the DBM said.
Apart from infrastructure and capital outlays, the item called “overall” infrastructure disbursements also accounts for the infrastructure components of subsidy and equity to government-owned and -controlled corporations, as well as fund transfers to local government units, the department said.
For infrastructure and capital outlays alone, the disbursements amounted to P1.327 trillion, surpassing by 6.7 percent the P1.243 spending program.
It also posted a 10.1 percent increase from the previous year’s P1.205 trillion.
“Infrastructure outlays were propelled by the sizable disbursements recorded in the DPWH for its banner infrastructure projects and the Department of National Defense for its defense modernization projects,” the DBM said.
In December, infrastructure and other capital outlays dropped 19.8 percent to P146.7 billion from P183 billion a year earlier.
“This was attributed to the combined impact of the base effects of high capital disbursements in 2023, as well as the ongoing processing and release of cash allocations for payments of completed and ongoing capital outlay projects of various departments (And) agencies during the latter part of 2024,” the DBM said.
Payments for some of these items were already expected to spill over into January 2025, it added.
