Gov’t spending up 19% in Q3

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

NATIONAL government spending reached P558.5 billion in the third quarter of the year, an increase of 19.3 percent, or P90.2 billion more than the same period last year, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said.

In a statement, the DBM Tuesday noted it was the Aquino administration’s “biggest quarterly (spending) growth rate since 2012.”

Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said the robust third quarter performance showed that the government’s efforts to fix spending bottlenecks were working.

He expressed optimism that the spending momentum would be sustained until the end of the year.

“It is still possible for full-year growth to reach 6 percent as public spending will play a pivotal role in the economic expansion in the fourth quarter,” he said.

The DBM also reported that government spending in September reached P186.3 billion, surpassing the P160 billion disbursements in 2014 by 16.6 percent.

The DBM said this was the third consecutive month within the third quarter and the fourth month this year that spending accelerated by a two-digit margin.

“This resulted in a remarkable spending performance of P558.5 billion in the third quarter, which was P90.2 billion higher than the P468.4 billion gained during the same period in 2014. It was also better than the 4.5 percent and 12.4 percent growth in the first and second quarters of 2015, respectively,” it said.

In September alone, disbursements were boosted by the sustained growth in both capital and maintenance expenditures.

“Our infrastructure spending leaped to P29 billion for September, exceeding by 50 percent what has been disbursed in the same period in 2014. Infrastructure spending growth was 57.6 percent year-on-year in Q3, amounting to P93 billion compared to P59 billion in the same period last year,” said Abad.