Aquino: Government to start spending by January

President Benigno Aquino III

President Benigno Aquino III said the government would be able to spend money for projects as early as next month now that he is set to sign next week the  P1.8–trillion national budget.

The President said he and his economic managers discussed on Tuesday the “front-loading” or the immediate release of money that the government will spend come January.

“We expect that the budget will be enacted and signed by December15 and we would do front-loading by January. The money will be released for disaggregated items,” he told reporters.

President Aquino said he told his economic managers to monitor not only the release of the budget allocations but their “absorption capacity.”

“There is a need to monitor the actual spending for the projects from the onset so that if there should be a delay, it is monitored and can be corrected as soon as possible,” he said.

The Aquino administration had been criticized for underspending its budget. But the President came up with a P72-billion stimulus package to boost government spending for the last quarter of the year.