THE Department of Budget and Management (DBM) plans to issue all the Special Allotment Release Order (SARO) for the record-high budget next year to all agencies within the first quarter to accelerate state agencies’ spending programs.
Budget and Management Secretary Amenah F. Pangandaman said releasing the SARO early would allow state agencies to start obligating their funds and conduct the necessary procurement measures for respective projects and programs.
Pangandaman said the DBM is still studying how it would issue all the SAROs of government agencies within the January to March period next year.
The DBM defines SARO as a “specific authority issued to identified agencies to incur obligations not exceeding a given amount during a specified period for the purpose indicated.”“We want to release all the SARO of everything listed in the General Appropriations Act so that the agencies can start their bidding process,” she said in a press briefing on Monday.
“Some of the agencies are saying they cannot start the bidding because they still do not have their SARO. [Releasing the SARO early] would fast-track the processes of the agencies,” she added.
The early release of SARO is one of the measures eyed by the DBM to ramp up the government agencies’ disbursement of funds, which has been quite slow this year as assessed by the economic team, particularly by Finance Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno.
Diokno has been vocal about the slow spending being undertaken by some government agencies, like the Department of Information and Communications Technology, resulting in lower than programmed budget deficit ceiling of the government. (Related story: https://businessmirror.com.ph/2023/07/31/diokno-agencies-will-fast-track-spending/)
Pangandaman said they will just scrutinize the use of funds by state agencies at the Notice of Cash Allocation (NCA) stage. Pangandaman explained that the NCA is only released to the state agencies once they have started implementing or have obligated their projects and programs.
Budget Undersecretary Leo Angelo Larcia said the DBM would form a technical working group (TWG) to review the government’s budget execution process with the goal of “expediting” the release of state funds while remaining in line with the Philippine Development Plan.
“We have until the end of the year to review the process,” Larcia said at the press briefing.
Pangandaman said the DBM is also close to completing its review of the government’s current procurement system, with an eye to presenting the proposed amendments to President Marcos Jr. in two weeks. Amending the present procurement law would help in improving state agencies’ spending rates, Pangandaman pointed out.
“After that we will release the amendments for the [Government Procurement Reform Act],” she added, noting that coming up with an updated procurement law is one of the priority measures of the current administration as pronounced by President Marcos Jr. in his State of the Nation Address last month.
The Bureau of the Treasury (BTr) earlier reported that the national government’s budget deficit fell by 18.17 percent year-on-year to P551.76 billion.
The latest budget deficit was 28.49 percent lower than the NG’s P771.5-billion mid-year deficit program as actual expenditures fell short of target disbursements. (Related story: https://businessmirror.com.ph/2023/07/28/ng-budget-deficit-narrows-18-17in-h1-to-%e2%82%a7551-7b-from-%e2%82%a7674-2b/)