RP eyes $100-M WB loan for social expenditures

Government is negotiating a new $100-million program loan with the World Bank this month to fund phase 2 of its Social Expenditures Management (SEM) program.

Finance Undersecretary Juanita Amatong told reporters yesterday that the WB extended loans in the past for the SEM program for the health, education and social work sectors.

"The initial reform program covered the Department of Health," Amatong said.

She said SEM2 will cover the reorganization of the DOH and the Department of Social Welfare and Development as well as the Department of Education, Culture and Sports.

Amatong said working group discussions will begin next week but the actual negotiations for the new program loan is scheduled for April 23 and 24.

Earlier this year, the country received some $2.8-billion worth of funding commitments from various donor countries and agencies during the consultative group meeting held in Pampanga.

The administration had expected to avail itself of about $1.29 billion in official development assistance (ODA) loans this year, out of the $5 billion to $10 billion already in the pipeline from multilateral financing institutions such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and other bilateral creditors.

The Department of Finance earlier said the government was trying to put in a "filter system" to weed out projects that would not be able to use the ODA immediately, and these might have to be cancelled to save on commitment fees. – Des Ferriols