Gov’t urged to boost spending

The government of President Duterte should further boost spending to maintain its strong economy which has grown 7.1 percent in the past quarter – the strongest in Asia – an administration lawmaker said yesterday.

Camarines Sur Rep. L-Ray Villafuerte said the new administration should veer away from the consistent “underspending” committed the previous administration for the past six years, which even resulted in questionable expenses discovered by the Commission on Audit.

“The new administration must be imbued with a firm resolve to reverse these irregular practices and lead the way to ensuring not only the prompt but also the judicious use of public funds,” he said.

The Duterte government should thus embark on a massive spending spree for infrastructure and human capital development, according to the first-term congressman.

Villafuerte issued the call as he expressed concern that a substantial portion of these questionable expenses in the past Aquino administration, totaling P2.964 billion, were mostly for infrastructure or construction projects.

“With the Duterte administration’s unprecedented infrastructure buildup on its watch, it might fall prey to the questionable spending uncovered by the COA during the time of former president Aquino,” he warned.

Villafuerte said COA had taken the previous government to task for incurring P7.46 billion in expenses that were declared as “unnecessary,” “excessive” and at times, even “illegal and irregular.”

The lawmaker was referring to a COA special audit report that declared expenses totaling P7.46 billion incurred by national government agencies in 2015 as “unnecessary, excessive, extravagant, illegal or irregular.”

According to state auditors, of this amount, procurement transactions totaling P5.173 billion were found to have violated Republic Act 9184 or the Government Procurement Reform Act.

The COA also found out that P2.964 billion went to government construction, supply, and service contracts that were awarded despite lack of supporting documents and other deficiencies.