The Duterte administration plans to boost infrastructure spending to as much as 7 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), higher than the Aquino government’s target of 5 percent this year, as the incoming budget chief lamented the present sorry state of infrastructure.
“The Duterte administration will not spend money for spending’s sake. The economy is deficient in all types of infrastructure—highways and bridges, ports and airports,” incoming Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno told the Inquirer.
Specific infrastructure projects to be pursued by the Duterte government would include “small-, medium- and large-scale projects [that] will be done in all regions—[both] highly developed and lagging—simultaneously, not sequentially,” Diokno said.
The University of the Philippines economics professor and also a former budget chief during the Estrada administration also said they would address the problem of underspending on public goods and services that prevailed during the past two years.
“First of all, I will put a lot of effort in budget preparation. I know that underspending is partly due to poor budget preparation. Many programs and projects are included in the annual budget, yet they are not ready to implement. Some departments ask for a budget that they are unable to implement: They bite more than what they can chew,” Diokno said.
“Second reason for the underspending is the ineptness or incompetence of some department chiefs. I propose to correct this by giving an executive briefing for secretaries and undersecretaries in charge of finance separately on the budget process. I will strengthen the project monitoring system,” he added.
Also, Diokno noted that “in the past, the budget planners provide slacks in the budget in the hope that they can play around with the slacks to finance projects not authorized by Congress,” which he said was what the controversial disbursement acceleration program (DAP) that the Aquino administration had put in place was all about. Ben O. de Vera