STATE infrastructure spending in the first quarter of this year hit P195.2 billion, up by 25.1 percent compared to the same period a year ago.
Data from the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) showed national government disbursements for infrastructure and capital outlays from January to March this year were P39.1 billion higher than last year’s P156.1 billion.
In its latest assessment on the government’s disbursement performance, the DBM said the increase was largely due to Department of Public Works and Highways’ (DPWH) road infrastructure program and direct payments made to suppliers by foreign creditors for foreign-assisted projects, such as the Metro Manila Subway Project of the Department of Transportation and the Davao City By-Pass Construction Project of the DPWH.
“Although the growth in infrastructure and other capital outlays may be partly due to base effects, the increase in infrastructure disbursements for Q1 this year of P39.1 billion was enough to completely offset the P22.1 billion reduction recorded in Q1 last year,” it said. “It also recovered from the negative growth recorded in the preceding two quarters of 33.0 percent in Q3 and 32.7 percent in Q4 2020.”
The double-digit expansion in state infrastructure spending along with higher maintenance disbursements drove the growth in overall government spending for the first quarter of this year.
For the three-month period, total government spending surged by nearly 20 percent to P1.018 trillion from last year’s P849.2 billion.
“Government spending is one of the major sources of growth which helped temper the economic contraction recorded for Q1 of this year. While the overall economic performance declined by 4.2 percent, government final consumption expenditure, which consists largely of the expenditures for various social programs, expanded by 16.1 percent,” the DBM said.
For March alone, state infrastructure spending jumped by 41.1 percent to P87.8 billion this year from P62.2 billion in the same month last year.
“This was largely propelled by the payment for completed and partially completed infrastructure projects of the Department of Public Works and Highways nationwide such as construction,
repair and rehabilitation of access, by-pass, and diversion roads, bridges, and flood mitigation structures and drainage systems,” the DBM said.
Overall government spending in March stood at P407.6 billion, up by 22.3 percent from P333.2 billion a year ago.
For the rest of the year, the DBM said they still see disbursements in the second quarter to be driven by Covid-19 related expenditures, including the release of allotments for the procurement of vaccines and the financial assistance to Metro Manila and four nearby provinces Cavite, Laguna, Bulacan and Rizal which were placed under Enhanced Community Quarantine to address the surge in the number of Covid-19 cases.
It also expects overall government spending to be boosted by ongoing construction projects of DPWH and the downloading of program subsidies to government-owned and -controlled corporations based on submitted requests.