Infrastructure spending is expected to accelerate in the first quarter of the year as notices of awards will be awarded earlier to the Department of Public Works and Highways, the Budget department said Monday.
Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said infrastructure projects said Public Works had aimed an obligation rate of 50 percent or P187.86 billion, within the first quarter of the year.
Public Works said the amount was higher than the actual obligation rate of 39 percent or P111.14 billion from the same period a year ago.
“We can expect 50 percent of infrastructure projects under DPWH to be issued notices of award by the first quarter of 2016,” Abad said.
Abad said with the improvement in the public spending in the past quarters, economic growth would remain robust until the fourth quarter of the year.
“December 2015 spending will continue the momentum that the previous five months demonstrated. In addition, the spending boost for last-minute Christmas sales will further ramp up growth in the last month of the year,” he said.
The government is poised to complete key infrastructure projects this year, including 98 percent of 364,693 lineal meters of bridges and 85 percent of 32,526.50 kilometers of roads.
The government has significantly increased total infrastructure spending in the last five years, from P175.4 billion in 2011, or 1.8 percent of the gross domestic product, to P766.5 billion this year to achieve the international benchmark of 5 percent of the GDP.
Abad said the increase in spending was complemented by encouraging public-private partnerships, improving governance to curb corruption, climate-proofing facilities and better procurement.
The budget agency said of the P1.66-trillion appropriations for departments and agencies this year, P1.49 trillion or 90 percent were already released to the departments and agencies on Monday, the first working day of the year.
“This huge improvement in the release of allotments is made possible with the new policy of treating the General Appropriations Act as the release document. Once approved and in effect, all disaggregated items in the budget of all agencies are deemed effectively released,” Abad said.
“Together with the earlier policy adopted which authorized departments and agencies to advance pre-procurement activities that enable them to bid projects short-of-award, this policy will further accelerate the already much improved pace of government spending. It will also ensure that most projects will be implemented before the beginning of the election ban on March 25,” Abad added.
Abad said the comprehensive release of the budget under the GAA-as-Release Document regime would promote faster implementation of programs and projects.
“While government underspending is a recurrent problem due to institutional weaknesses in agencies for the most part, the GAARD regime gives these agencies a head-start in their procurement activities and gives them much-needed momentum in terms of higher rates of obligation. This results in faster delivery of public goods and services, which will be to the benefit of our people,” Abad said.