2018 budget shortfall over target at P558.25B
Credit to Author: MAYVELIN U. CARABALLO, TMT| Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2019 16:30:07 +0000
The Duterte administration exceeded its budget deficit target last year as higher-than-programmed expenditures offset a surge in revenues, data obtained by reporters showed.
Unofficial figures pegged the 2018 shortfall at P558.25 billion, well above the P526.8-billion cap and also higher than the 2017 result of P350.6 billion.
In gross domestic product terms, the government was aiming to spend the equivalent of 3 percent of GDP last year, higher than 2017’s 2.2 percent.
Full-year collections reached P2.85 trillion, breaching the P2.82-trillion program by 1 percent and up 15.3 percent for the year.
Expenditures, meanwhile, grew by 20.5 percent to P3.40 trillion from 2017, exceeding the P3.35-trillion spending goal.
The government incurred an P81.04-billion shortfall in December alone. Revenues dropped 4 percent to P232.1 billion during the monnth while disbursements, at P313.25 billion, were also down 5.1 percent year-on-year.
Official full-year data has yet to be released by the Treasury bureau while details of government expenditures are scheduled to be released next week.
Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno has said that state spending on infrastructure likely fell slightly below target last year but also declared that Duterte administration cannot be said to have held back from implementing a policy aim.
He estimated infrastructure spending as a percentage of GDP to have hit 6.2 percent last year, almost triple the average of 2 percent from 1986 to 2016 but lower than the government’s 6.3-percent target and the 6.3 percent recorded in 2017.
Diokno claimed that fast-tracked spending was addressing infrastructure underinvestments that had weighed on economic growth in the past.
For this year, the Duterte government is aiming for a deficit equivalent to 3.2 percent of GDP under the delayed P3.575-trillion 2019 budget.
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