MALAYA: WAITING FOR THE 2012 BUDGET PROPOSAL
MANILA, JULY 27, 2011 - (MALAYA) ('The Aquino administration clearly has no intention of reviving such a shady practice as a reenacted budget.')
WHILE the State of the Nation Address takes stock of what the administration has done and lays down what it intends to do, it was more of an inspirational message rather than a concrete program of action for the coming year.
The actual programs and projects to be implemented are spelled out in the proposed budget, hence the latter provides a more meaningful document on what to expect for 2012.
This was being written as the President Aquino was delivering his second SONA. We have no idea whether he would come up with an accomplishment report based on what the government was supposed to do as spelled out in the budget for 2011.
But the record and the pronouncements of members of his economic team would show that the whole bureaucracy has not been up to speed in the first semester of 2010.
There was marked under-spending during the first quarter. There was not much improvement in the second quarter. Up-to-date data is not available, for reasons only the economic managers know, but the most recent statement, that from Planning Secretary Cayetano Paderanga the other day, was that line agencies were still trying to catch up during the second quarter and will continue to try to catch up in the third and fourth quarters.
This hardly inspires confidence, given the need to speed up delivery of basic services and to build the infrastructure for sustained economic growth. The current budget was prepared by the administration and passed by Congress with minimal re-alignment. There is simply no excuse for below-par performance, not even the review of contracts in order to eliminate the graft-tainted ones.
Malacañang said the proposed budget for 2012 will be submitted to Congress today. That's a significant change, the administration not waiting for the deadline, which is 30 days after the opening of the regular session of Congress.
There will be more time for the legislature to scrutinize the proposed spending program and, more important, to pass it before the end of the calendar year.
The Arroyo administration used to delay the budget's passage to it could spend any which way it pleased during the period when government operated on a reenacted budget.
The Aquino administration clearly has no intention of reviving such a shady practice. Well and good. With a spending program in place at the start of the year, the challenge becomes a purely management function: implementing projects on time and on budget.
The administration should be up to it after the early months of tentativeness and hesitation.
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Chief News Editor: Sol Jose Vanzi
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