DBM: Lump sum in 2015 fewer than previous years

THERE are fewer lump sums in the spending plan of this year’s P2.606-trillion budget compared to previous years, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said yesterday.

The DBM issued the statement following the claim of former senator Panfilo Lacson that the lump sums in 2015 budget has already reached P424 billion.

It said Lacson’s “doomsday” assertion on lump sums was “inaccurate,” noting that 87 percent of the P378-billion Special Purpose Fund under this year’s budget has already been disaggregated.

The DBM said that all remaining lump-sum items are funds “whose specific purposes are impossible to determine in the planning process.”

Lump sum funds cannot be used unless an itemized listing is submitted — Escudero

“For example: we cannot foretell where disasters will strike or what the extent of the potential damage might be, so the National Disaster Risk Reduction and management fund is necessarily a lump sum,” the department said.

For Sen. Francis Escu- dero, lump-sum funds in the 2015 budget are “just temporary and with appropriate safeguards.”

“The observations of (former) senator Lacson regarding the lump sums are correct. There are indeed lump sums. However, it is important to note that these funds cannot be used unless an itemized listing is submitted,” Escudero, chairman of Senate finance committee, said.

Citing Section 65 of the 2015 General Appropriations Act, the senator said an itemized listing should be submitted to the DBM, copy furnished to the Commission on Audit and Congress before any lump sum can be used.

Escudero also backed the DBM when he said that this year’s budget is, by far, the “most detailed or itemized budget with the least number or amount of lump sums.”

“We must not mislead the public by implying that lump sums in the budget are tantamount to fund irregularity. It’s true that most budget items ought to be disaggregated, exactly as we have done,” The DBM said.