Budget Secretary Florencio “Butch” B. Abad said the strong government spending momentum will be sustained until the end of the year and could play a pivotal role in the economic expansion in the fourth quarter (Q4).
Payment of contracts for some big capital projects, which encountered delays, such as the Health Facilities Enhancement Program (HFEP) and the Automated Election System (AES) of the Commission on Elections, as well as the pressure to finish infrastructure projects from political leaders in the run up to the May 2016 elections will further boost spending in Q4, he said.
National government spending registered another two-digit year-on-year growth of 16.6 percent last September to wrap up a strong quarterly growth of 19.3 percent, the biggest quarterly growth rate since 2012.
According to the latest report of the Department of Budget and Management (DBM), spending for September reached P186.3 billion, surpassing the P160 billion disbursements in 2014 by 16.6 percent.
It was the third consecutive month within the third quarter (Q3) and the fourth month in the year that spending accelerated by a two-digit margin.
This resulted in a remarkable spending performance of P558.5 billion in the third quarter, a 19.3 percent increase or P90.2 billion higher than the P468.4 billion gained during the same period last year. It was also better than the 4.5 percent and 12.4 percent growth in the first and second quarters of 2015, respectively.
Cumulative spending as of end September was at P1,630.5 billion, a growth of 12.0 percent or P174.5 billion more than the spending in the same period in 2014.
“Our infrastructure spending leaped to P29 billion for September, exceeding by fifty percent what has been disbursed in the same period last year,” Abad said in a statement.
“Infrastructure spending growth is 57.6 percent year-on-year in Q3, amounting to P93 billion compared to P59 billion in the same period in 2014,” he added.