The Department of Budget Management (DBM) is set to submit next week to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. the proposed amendments to the Government Procurement Reform Act (GPRA).
In a Senate hearing on Wednesday, Budget Secretary Amenah Pangandaman said she was strongly pushing for amendments to the decades-old Republic Act 9184, also known as the Government Procurement Reform Act, to further help government agencies address difficulties in the procurement of their programs, activities and projects, which is identified as one of the biggest problems in government spending.
“We already have the amendments and we are ready to present this to the President on Tuesday next week, during our Cabinet meeting,” Pangandaman said.
Following the President’s approval, a physical version of the bill would be delivered to both the Senate and the House for subsequent filing.
“We have steps to address government spending and budget utilization. For government procurement, it is the only one that needs legislation and you know that during the SONA [State-of-the-Nation Address] of the President, it was again mentioned to amend the Government Procurement Reform Act,” Pangandaman said
Last week, Pangandaman issued Circular Letter No. 2023-10 requiring agencies to submit “catch-up plans” to facilitate budget execution for the rest of 2023.
The DBM issued the guidelines for budget utilization following the latest cash operations report of the Bureau of Treasury that the national government spent below the P2.582 trillion disbursement program for the first semester by P170.5 billion, or 6.6 percent as of end-June 2023.
Pangandaman said the underspending was due to the substantial outstanding checks worth P124.1 billion as reported by government-servicing banks; lower-than-programmed interest payments;
ongoing registration and validation of beneficiaries; procurement-related difficulties such as late delivery of goods and failed biddings due to withdrawal or disqualification of bidders, unavailability of competent suppliers, and lack of or late submission of supporting documents, among others.
“As what I would always emphasize, we consider budget utilization rates (BURs) in evaluating the absorptive capacity of agencies. We view low utilization rate as the agency’s limited capacity to utilize new funds. However, those agencies who need to increase their utilization rates have promised to produce catch-up plans during the budget deliberations. So, we hope that their BURs will increase by then,” Pangandaman said.
Earlier, the DBM collaborated with the state-run Land Bank of the Philippines for the use of a digital government purchase card (GPC) for agencies’ faster procurement of immediate miscellaneous expenses, cutting the time needed to liquidate government transactions, promoting reduced cash handling by government agencies, operational efficiency, transparency, and accountability in the disbursement of public funds.