Transport dep’t posts weakest budget utilization rate
THE NATIONAL government’s budget utilization in October rose to 71% from 68% a year earlier, the Department of Budget and Management said.
Over the 10 months to October, the budget utilization rate was little changed at 91.7% from 91.8% a year earlier.
The measure of utilization is the Notice of Cash Allocations (NCA), a cash authority issued quarterly by the Budget department to central, regional and provincial government agencies and operating units to cover their cash requirements.
The Department of Transportation had the lowest NCA utilization in October at 16.3%, with P6.1 billion of its P7.29 billion budget releases unused.
This was followed by the Department of Information and Communications Technology, which used 16.7% of the P674.96 million released.
Agencies have until the end of the quarter to fully utilize their budget allotments.
The Judiciary, which includes the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals, the Court of Tax Appeals, and other court had the highest NCA utilization rate at 97.1% of the P216 million released.
The Department of Public Works and Highways was second at 93.4% on funds of P36.09 billion budget for the month.
Budget Undersecretary Laura B. Pascua said that the NCA use should improve further in the following months.
“Infra[structure] has been running ahead of its cash program,” she said in a mobile phone message.
In the nine months to September, the government spent P2.01 trillion, or 67.93% of the P2.959 trillion overall expenditure target.