Senate President Franklin M. Drilon hopes bureaucratic red tape that turns away business sector will be restricted with the new feature of the proposed P2.268-trillion 2014 National Budget. The 2014 National budget will allow agencies to proceed with implementing their projects on the first day of the year sans submission of Agency Budget Matrices (ABMs) and request for release of Special Allotment Release Orders (SAROs).
The Executive branch introduced new innovation to the budget which is the budget-as-a-release document regime. This means the budgets of agencies are considered released to them as soon as the National Budget is enacted, Drilon noted.
SAROs and ABMs are documents that authorize the agency to enter into an obligation or commitment.
“On the first day of the year, the approved National Budget will be enough to authorize all government agencies to obligate their budget without needing to submit budget matrices, which take about two months before agencies could actually submit them,” said Drilon, who, in the last Congress, chaired the Senate Finance Committee that heard the budget.
“That one or two months being spent by agencies in preparing these documentary requirements could have been spent in the actual implementation of important programs such as the building of classrooms, health centers, or provision of medicines to our elderly,” emphasized Drilon.
“The new system, once in place, can help cut red tape, ease and speed-up the processes securing a really early delivery of much-needed programs and services,” said Drilon. However, there will still be minimal items in the budget that will need clearance from proper authorities which may include, among others, intelligence and lump-sum funds.
“Whenever we would ask agencies to explain why there are delays in the implementation of their programs, they would pass the blame to the budget department, making it their scapegoat. The DBM did not release us funds. The SARO is released late,” said Drilon.
Drilon warned agencies: “you will have no one to blame but yourselves if you still fail to implement your programs and deliver services to our people in a timely manner come 2014.”
He also encouraged agencies to proceed with the bidding process, short of award, while the budget is still being deliberated, so that once it is approved, they can already obligate their budgets. /MP
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