Budget surplus narrows to P52.6B

AFP FILE PHOTO/ROMEO GACAD

The national government narrowed its fiscal surplus last April to P52.6 billion as revenue collection slowed while expenditures slightly rose from a year ago.

At the end of the first four months, a budget surplus of P19.1 billion was posted, reversing a P3.3-billion deficit in end-April last year. In end-April, total revenues rose 9 percent to P679.6 billion while expenditures grew 5 percent to P660.6 billion.

The April cash operations report released by the Department of Finance on Thursday showed that the budget surplus fell by 35 percent from P80.9 billion in the same month last year as tax and non-tax revenues declined by 7 percent to P209.1 billion from P224.4 billion a year ago.

While the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s tax collection grew 3 percent to P160.8 billion and other offices’ revenues jumped by 28 percent to P8.6 billion, the take of the Bureau of Customs slid 9 percent to P28.1 billion mainly on cheaper oil, coupled with a hefty 62-percent drop in the Bureau of the Treasury’s revenues to P11.6 billion as dividend collections from state-run corporations were remitted last March instead of April.

Expenditures, meanwhile, increased by 9 percent to P156.5 billion last April from P143.6 billion in the same month last year. In April, public spending went up by 8 percent to 140.8 billion while interest payments jumped by a faster 17 percent to P15.7 billion.

“We expect this improving pace to further accelerate as agencies continue to uncork the barriers to faster government spending,” Finance Secretary Cesar V. Purisima said in a statement.

To support economic growth by spending on vital public goods and services while increasing revenue collection, the government had programmed for the April-to-June period a fiscal deficit of P50.8 billion as planned expenditures worth P669.4 billion must outpace expected revenues of P618.7 billion.