DICT says its budget disbursement for 2023 at 6%

The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) has only used 6% of its P14-billion available budget for 2023 so far, it was learned Thursday.

DICT’s budget briefer during deliberations on the its proposed P8.729-billion budget for 2024 showed that of its P14.47 billion available budget as of August 25, only P3.1 billion was obligated and P813,758 million was disbursed.

This means that the DICT’s unobligated allotment, or the available funding for dues which DICT is yet to pay, is at P11.26 billion.

The agency also has P2.4 billion worth of unpaid obligations.

As of August 25, the P14 billion available to the DICT is comprised of P9.7 billion from its 2023 budget and P4.733 billion in continuing appropriations from its 2022 budget.

In the same budget briefer, DICT included a catch-up plan to accelerate its budget utilization, saying that it should go up to 28% by September, 58.55% by October, 60.32% in November and 70% in December.

DICT Undersecretary Heherson Asiddao then argued that the disbursement rate of the agency is actually higher when lodged against the budget released to them by the Department of Budget and Management.

"For the first quarter,  the cash downloaded to us, we already spent 99% of that. For the second quarter, we left around P400 million, so it is 43% [disbursement rate] overall," Asiddao said.

DICT Undersecretary Jeffrey Dy, for his part, said that agency has already been able to procure 58% of the P2.5-billion funding for the Free WiFi For All program for 2023.

"We are still planning procurement in the coming months and we believe we will be able to establish 9,600 free public WiFi sites by the end of this year," Dy said.

House appropriations panel vice chairperson Luis Campos of Makati was not convinced, telling Asiddao, "Your presentation is not realistic. It is just in your favor."

House appropriations panel senior vice chairperson Stella Quimbo of Marikina city, for her part, called out Asiddao for saying that the DICT already spent a significant amount of its budget.

"This 6% [budget utilization] covers your continuing appropriation from 2022 and 2023 appropriation. As far as I am concerned, this is your budget utilization. This [disbursement over allotment] is what all the other agencies use to report to us. I am just telling you that," she stressed.

Asiddao conceded to Quimbo's point by saying, "Yes, Madam."

Quimbo added, "This [6%] is how we will assess you, because we want to be fair to all other agencies. If we assess them based on this number [of disbursement over allotment], this is how we will assess you," Quimbo added.

Asiddao again replied, "Yes, Madam."

DICT said that as of August 23, 60.32% of its operations budget is already in active procurement.

The DICT also said that it is on track of releasing its Annual Procurement Plan for 2024 by September 15, which will be followed by Early Procurement Activities.

DICT has also set three goals for 2024:

• completing 15,100 Free Wifi For All sites
• establishing national broadband by laying out 2,800 kilometers of national fiber backbone
• establishing two DICT-run data centers.

— BM, GMA Integrated News