Gov’t agencies improve budget usage in April

GOVERNMENT AGENCIES raised their cash utilization rates to 89% in April, up from 63% a year earlier, according to the Department of Budget and Management (DBM).

The DBM said the National Government, local governments and state-owned firms used P1.082 trillion of the P1.219 trillion worth of notices of cash allocation (NCAs) issued to them in the first four months of the year, leaving P136.57 billion unused.

NCAs are a quarterly disbursement authority from the DBM issued to agencies, allowing the later to withdraw funds from the Treasury to support their spending needs.

“This improvement in NCA usage rate is an indication of the government’s faster cash utilization to mobilize its programs and projects,” Asian Institute of Management Economist John Paolo R. Rivera said via Viber on Sunday.

“This may have something to do with government taking steps to make improvements in its social amelioration programs, efforts to curb the impact of the pandemic, and execution of other pressing initiatives to boost spending during the ECQ (enhanced community quarantine) to at least mitigate its negative impact on the economy,” Mr. Rivera added.

Line departments used 85% or P699.97 billion in NCAs released to them as of April.

The Joint Legislative-Executive Councils recorded the top utilization rate of 97%, followed by the Energy department with 96%.

After the government placed Metro Manila and nearby provinces under lockdown last month, it provided one-time cash aid to affected poor households of P1,000 per person, up to P4,000 per household. The emergency cash aid program had a total budget of P23 billion.

The DBM had released P3.613 trillion or 80.2% of this year’s P4.5-trillion spending plan as of April. — Beatrice M. Laforga