In a bid to enhance its fiscal planning and project implementation, the government has adopted a cash budgeting system beginning fiscal year 2019.
President Duterte has signed Executive Order No. 91 authorizing the shift from the current obligation budgeting to cash budgeting system to hasten the utilization of the government budget.
The new system limits incurring contractual obligations and disbursing payments to goods delivered and services rendered and inspected within the fiscal year. Contracts should be fully delivered by the end of the fiscal year to ensure prompt delivery of public goods and services.
Under the previous obligation budgeting, contracts awarded within the fiscal year can be delivered even after the end of the year.
“There is a need to improve the fiscal planning of government agencies through the implementation of an operational cash budget and by setting deadlines for obligation of funds and execution of projects during the fiscal year, in order to speed up the implementation of programs and to prompt deliver goods and services to our people,” Duterte said in the order.
The President’s order noted that the significant gaps between the actual expenditure outruns and annual appropriations translate to billions of pesos of delayed and foregone service, which should have been delivered to the general public. (Genalyn Kabiling)