Additional funds for fuel subsidies to be sourced from excess tax collections –NEDA

The proposed hike in fuel subsidies for both the public transport and agriculture sectors would be funded through excess tax collections this month, a top official of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) said Tuesday.

On Monday night, NEDA Secretary Karl Chua announced that the fuel subsidy for the public utility vehicles (PUV) sector would be increased to P5 billion from P2.5 billion to further ease the impact of skyrocketing oil prices aggravated by the Ukraine-Russia war.

The first tranche, the initial P2.5 billion budget, was targeted to be distributed in March with the second tranche targeted for April.

The economic team is also pushing to increase the fuel vouchers for agricultural producers to P1.1 billion from P500 million, for distribution in March and April.

At a Palace briefing, NEDA Undersecretary Rosemarie Edillon said the first tranches of the PUV and agriculture sectors’ fuel subsidies are both funded under the 2022 General Appropriations Act (GAA).

As to how the additional subsidies would be funded, Edillon said, “‘Yun pong additional [funding requirement], ang tingin namin is hintayin muna natin ang magiging tax collection nitong March.”

(For the additional funding requirement, we will wait what will be the tax collection this March)

Edillon explained that unprogrammed appropriations can only be funded through excess state revenues.

Nevertheless, the NEDA official was confident the government could collect excess tax revenues this month.

“Ang tingin naman natin magkakaroon ng excess collection at dito po natin kukuhanin,” Edillon said.

(We believe that there will be an excess collection and this is where we’ll source it from.)

She also reiterated the NEDA’s proposal to place the entire country under Alert Level 1, which was projected to result in an additional P16.5 billion in economic activity each week.

At least 39 areas, including the National Capital Region, were placed under Alert Level 1 from March 1 to 15. — DVM, GMA News