DIVIDENDS remitted by government-owned and –controlled corporations to the National Treasury in 2017 rose 9.8 percent to P30.45 billion from P27.73 billion a year ago, Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III said Monday.
Dominguez said in a statement the 2017 dividend collections exceeded the P27.73-billion remittances in 2016, even if state-run Land Bank of the Philippines was exempted from paying its P6-billion dividends in 2017 to allow it to recapitalize and better serve the increasing development needs of the country.
Dominguez said had these dividends not been exempted, the total dividend would have reached P36.45 billion.
He said the DoF’s Corporate Affairs Group had aggressively promoted financial discipline among GOCCs.
“For CAG. we are pleased to report that our dividend collections have hit P30.4 billion, up from last year’s P27.6 billion. And that is excluding the LandBank dividends of P6 billion,” Finance Undersecretary Antonette Tionko informed Dominguez at a recent DoF executive committee meeting.
Tionko said dividend collections totaling P30.45 billion last year came from 53 GOCCs, including the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines, which had not remitted dividends for the past four years, but has now emerged as one of the biggest dividend contributors.