Romero: Imperative for gov’t to submit nat’l budget early

Credit to Author: Tempo Desk| Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2019 09:25:06 +0000

ROMERO

Early submission of the proposed national budget by government has become imperative to avert serious and huge losses to the economy caused by delayed approval, computed at P463.6 billion in the first six months of 2019 alone.

House Deputy Speaker and 1Pacman partylist Rep. Michael Romero aired this recommendation as he lamented the economic slowdown that was caused by the nearly six-month delay in the approval of the budget bill during the current year.

“Opportunity loss as a result of the long delay in the budget approval was $17.834 billion in 2019. We should do everything legal to avoid a repeat of this regrettable situation in the future,” Romero said during the Partytlist Forum yesterday.

Monthly loss during the first six months of 2019 was P77.2 billion, said Romero, president of the Partylist Coalition Foundation Inc.

The House official disclosed that the projected Gross Domestic Product growth of 6.4 percent registered a four-year low of 5.5 percent for the first quarter.

Romero, one of the country’s top economists, urged the Department of Budget and Management to make it a habit to submit the proposed National Expenditure Program on July of each year to give Congress enough time to scrutinize the proposal and eventually approve it.

He noted that the proposed P4.1-trillion national budget for next year was submitted to the House of Representatives only last Aug. 18, instead of the usual turnover that coincides with the State-of-
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