DBM signals readiness to cut MOOE to free up funds for infrastructure

THE Department of Budget and Management (DBM) said it will review maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE) items to free up fiscal space for infrastructure.

“I would like to see how the MOOE items emerge. We have very limited fiscal space and if there is room for us to clear some MOOE items to give way for some big-ticket infrastructure that we actually need,” Budget Secretary Kim Robert C. de Leon said at a signing ceremony for a public procurement reform program supported by the European Union (EU) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

He called for “a single standard of accountability” that should be applied uniformly “not only to big-ticket contracts, but even to the purchase of supplies, travel or representation expensed. There should be accountability. You should not look for accountability only in infrastructure projects.”

He added that this approach was in line with the government’s mandate under the Government Optimization Act or Republic Act No. 12231.

“We are members of the Committee on Optimization of the Executive Branch. All of these are in line with how we can better optimize the bureaucracy,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the signing.

The EU, the UNDP, and the Philippines launched on Thursday the EU-PH Partnership in Reinforcing Capacity, Transparency, and Efficiency in Public Procurement, which is designed to bolstering the Philippines’ anti-corruption mechanisms.

The project is funded by the EU, while UNDP will implement the project. The program’s government partners are the DBM, the DBM’s Procurement Service, the Government Procurement Policy Board, and the Commission on Audit.

“At the DBM, we believe that efficiency and accountability must go hand-in-hand. Technology must make government faster. Transparency must make government stronger,” Mr. de Leon said. — Aaron Michael C. Sy