Bagong Henerasyon Party-list Representative Bernadette “BH” Herrera urged that the General Appropriations Act (GAA) absorptive capacity issues must be addressed in 2022.
“With the 2022 GAA, we in Congress will be more watchful against waste, graft, and corruption given that it is the largest national budget ever enacted into law. We will not hesitate to exercise our oversight role over the various government agencies,” stated Deputy Speaker Herrera, following President Rodrigo Duterte signing P5.024 trillion 2022 GAA into law last Thursday, December 30, 2021.
The GAA or the Republic Act 11639 aims to ensure much-needed funding for government agencies upon their COVID-19 and disaster response for the year 2022. This led to Hererra, one of the members of the House Contingent Bicameral Committee on the 2022 General Appropriations Act, stating that she would be keeping an eye on how the Supreme Court’s Mandanas-Garcia decision will be implemented in 2022 budget releases.
In her statement, Herrera emphasized how the oversight role of Congress is often forgotten due to the misconception that once a law is passed, the Congress’ involvement is over, when it must continue on with ensuring that all funds are spent well, legally, and efficiently. Herrera expressed how it has not been the strength of the executive agencies to be efficient with or without the pandemic, emphasizing the Commission on Audit (COA) reports that state that the same kind of problems persists.
“For yet another fiscal year, Congress has again authorized carryover spending of unspent funds from the prior year. But the difficulty has not been the pandemic only. Many executive agencies are still unable to disburse GAA funds during the same year they are authorized for,” the Deputy Speaker stated, calling the whole conflict the “absorptive capacity problem.”
Herrera ends her statement with her call for provisions addressing the persistent and pervasive absorptive capacity issues when the DBM issues its budget call in January 2022 for the 2023 GAA.
Photo Credit: Facebook/bherrerady