Infra spending...

the right-of-way acquisition for the Southwest Integrated Transport System project and completed civil works for the LRT-2 East Extension project.”

In the first seven-months of the year, government’s infrastructure and other capitals reached R297.5 billion, up by 11 percent compared with R267.7 in the same period last year.

Earlier, the DBM lowered its 2017 infrastructure and other capital outlays target as actual disbursements of funds continued to fall below programmed.

Based on a DBM report submitted to the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC), the funding for infrastructure and other capital outlays this year was lowered by 10 percent to R549.4 billion from the original R603.4-billion target.

Under the revised program, the Duterte administration is aiming to spend about R236.64 billion for infrastructure and other capital outlays in the first semester.

Broken down, the government allocated R208.89 billion for pure infrastructure and R27.75 billion for other capital outlays.

Following the adjustments, the DBM reported that the government surpassed its R108.9 billion revised spending goal for public works in the first three-months of the year by eight percent to R117.5 billion.

For the second-quarter, the DBM set an infrastructure spending target of R127.74 billion. Of that amount, R112.76 billion is set aside for pure infrastructure and the remaining R14.98 billion is for other capital outlays.

State spending on infrastructure is expected to further increase in the third quarter as the government expects disbursements to reach R137.79 billion, consisting of R121.63 billion for pure infrastructure and R16.16 billion for other capital outlays.

For the final three months of the year, public works disbursements are seen to improve further to R174.92 billion, of which, about R154.41 billion is allocated for infrastructure and R20.51 billion for other capital outlays.