Infra spending picks up at end-Nov.
The amount spent by the government to build infrastructure jumped by over two-fifths to P426.3 billion in the January to November 2016 period, latest data from the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) showed.
Disbursements for infrastructure and other capital outlays grew 46.3 percent as of end-November 2016 from P291.3 billion in the same period in 2015.
The end-November infrastructure expenditure accounted for 80 percent of the revised full-year 2016 program.
During the same period, “infrastructure spending remained to be a steady source of growth of disbursements,” the DBM said in a report.
“This is attributed to the projects implemented by the Department of Public Works and Highways for both regular maintenance, upgrading of national roads and convergence programs; modernization program of the Department of National Defense-Armed Forces of the Philippines; and capital outlay projects in the Department of Health (health facilities), state universities and colleges (building construction and equipment), and the Department of Education (repair and rehabilitation of classrooms and educational facilities), among others,” the DBM explained.
In the month of November alone, the amount spent on infrastructure rose 49.3 percent to P30.4 billion from P20.4 billion a year ago.
Infrastructure disbursements last November were 30.3-percent lower than October’s P43.7 billion.
The DBM attributed the year-on-year increase in infrastructure and other capital expenditures in November to the sustained implementation of the DPWH’s road infrastructure projects, payments for completed repair as well as rehabilitation of classrooms and other education facilities in DepEd schools, implementation of local infrastructure projects in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, as well as other capital outlay projects in DOH hospitals and a number of state universities and colleges across the country.
For 2017, the Duterte administration had programmed to spend P850 billion or 5.3 percent of the gross domestic product on hard infrastructure, en route to bringing the infrastructure spending-to-GDP ratio to over 7 percent by 2022.
“One of the priority agenda of the government is to aggressively bridge the country’s infrastructure gap in the next six years. Poor infrastructure has been a major constraint to growth,” Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno said in a speech last week.
“This year, the government has lined up infrastructure projects to address our traffic crisis, which is costing us P2.4 billion daily according to a Japan International Cooperation Agency study, to link the major cities to the lagging regions, and increase the mobility of people, goods and services while creating 700,000 jobs to Filipino workers annually in the medium term,” Diokno said.
“New road networks will be built across the archipelago. A total of P349 billion is earmarked for road networks,” the Budget chief said.
