By SAMMY JULIAN
Manila News Bureau Chief
MANILA — Government agencies were directed to report the status of Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP)-funded projects to determine which items require additional funding from Congress, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad said.
Abad disclosed that they were still trying to finalize the amount of the proposed supplemental budget for projects previously funded by DAP.
“We are still doing an inventory of the status of the projects,” Abad said. “Most have actually been completed and the rest in varying stages of implementation. We have directed agencies to report as soon as possible.”
President Benigno Aquino III on Monday called on Congress to pass a supplemental budget this year to complete the projects under DAP.
“We are proposing the passage of a supplemental budget for 2014 so that the implementation of our programs and projects need not be compromised,” the President said in his fifth State of the Nation Address.
The Supreme Court earlier declared parts of the administration’s major economic stimulus program, including the cross-border transfer of savings outside the executive branch, as unconstitutional.
The Department of Budget and Management already released a list of 116 DAP-identified projects amounting to P144 billion./PN
