On Wednesday, July 31, the majority of the members of the Finance and Currency Commission of Congress, deputies from opposition blocs, voted to issue an unfavorable opinion on the request for a budget increase of Q14,451 million, requested by the Government at the beginning of June.
Although the official document of the opinion was not presented, the congressmen attending the session who are part of the opposition groups Nosotros, Elefante, Vamos and Unionistas, instructed that an unfavorable position be issued.
The position is given one day – August 1 – from the start of the second period of ordinary sessions in the Legislature and 36 hours after the Ministry of Finance (Minfin) placed Eurobonds for US$1.4 billion, equivalent to approximately Q10.836 billion.
Among the arguments presented by opposition deputies during the session, is that it is impossible to carry out an execution of such magnitude in what remains of the fiscal year and added to that, the proposed income and expenditure budget of the State for 2025 is yet to be known.
The legislators suggested that it was better to make the adjustments in the next spending plan, although they also criticized that the request was submitted late, since “it should have been submitted in the first months of the year.”
Furthermore, the issuance of Eurobonds and the resources in the treasury would guarantee the funds, but there would be no budgetary space for their implementation.
Gray zone
At the end of the session, Julio Héctor Estrada, president of the aforementioned working room, declared that at the next meeting scheduled for Wednesday, August 7, another document will be released or another amendment to the request will be presented, for which the presence of the Minfin authorities will be required.
In his opinion, “there is a grey area” in the sense that the vote on Wednesday was held with 11 deputies, when 12 votes are needed.
At the beginning of the session in the Finance Committee, the deputy of the Creo bench, Luis Alberto Contreras Colindres, suggested postponing the discussion of the opinion to hear it next Monday, arguing situations related to income and expenses.
Deputy Jairo Flores, representative of the VOS bloc, indicated the need for the Executive to have the budgetary spaces for the execution of the budget, especially in programs related to social issues, such as the fight against chronic malnutrition and the payment of debt service.
Presentation of initiative
During the day, Deputy Estrada presented the initiative, which proposed an adjustment to the ceiling for this fiscal year for an amount of Q11.1 billion, which would be equivalent to a total reduction of Q3.3 billion from the request of Q14.4 billion.
Regarding the income issue, it would be Q14,451 million and it was considered that the income projection was confirmed with the data provided by the Minfin and the tax administrator.
However, it was stressed that “it is necessary to expand the State’s revenue budget, because there is an underestimation of tax collection and this situation must be corrected.”
The budget ceiling would be around Q127 billion and during the presentation a technical distribution was shown:
- For municipalities and Departmental Development Councils: Q3.8 billion.
- Various institutions such as USAC, OJ, CC, TSE, Sports, Pinpep, school meals, Hospital-Cáncer, and others: Q2.4 billion.
- Passive classes and senior citizens: Q400 million.
- Debt service: Q1.3 billion.
- Ministries such as Health, Education, Government, Defense, Communications and others: Q3.2 billion.
Finally, the Finance Committee’s analysis removed several articles from the request submitted and made some provisions, such as the following:
- The General Secretariat for Planning and Programming and the Secretariat for Executive Coordination of the Presidency did not respond to the request for information, and the Minfin responded to questions only partially and not in a joint opinion, as requested.
- Considering that the execution and implementation of this standard corresponds to the Executive Branch, it does not propose any change or improvement in the wording, in response to the questions raised by the technical team of this legislative Commission.
- The technical elements for the integration of the resource allocation table were not provided to the Public Finance and Currency Commission, so the allocation criteria by municipality are unknown and, for this reason, there is no technical basis to support a possible assessment to modify the distribution table.
- It is understood and reiterated that the implementation challenges and the legal, administrative, and financial challenges that may arise during implementation must be addressed, corrected, and overcome by the Executive Branch.
Free Press He requested an opinion on the matter from the Minister of Public Finance, through his Communications Department, but received no response.
#Deputies #vote #requested #budget #increase
