The sectors with more resources in the budget addition of Petro - Sectors

The Minister of Finance, José Antonio Ocampo, made official the bill to increase the General Budget of the Nation by close to 25 billion pesos.

“In total, expenses of 25.4 trillion pesos are added, of which 23.2 trillion pesos are from the Central National Government without debt service. The difference of 2.2 trillion pesos in spending corresponds to public establishments and is financed with own resources and special funds that are the SENA and the ICBF”Ocampo said.

Debt service of 1.5 trillion pesos is also added due to adjustments in the representative market rate.

“This raises the debt service in foreign currency. Thus, the net improvement of the Nation is 6.4 trillion pesos and the General Budget of the Nation is 8.6 trillion pesos”, he added.

Similarly, Ocampo was emphatic that he agrees with the Autonomous Committee of the Fiscal Rule. “We have streamlined various requests from the government team to conform to it,” he stipulated.

Budget modifications seek to adapt the budget to new economic, social and environmental conditions that may arise during the execution of operating expenses and public debt service or investment projects, which, for different reasons, were not foreseen during the budget programming stage.

José Antonio Ocampo, Minister of Finance of Colombia.

Photo:

Mauricio Moreno. TIME

Where does the spending go?

89.2 percent of the addition of expenses to the National Government is destined to advance the transformations foreseen in the Development Plan, while 10.8 percent corresponds to the coverage of legal obligations.

Specifically, for the increase in salaries and pensions and that is related to the increase in the minimum wage, 2.5 trillion pesos went away.

«In this case, an adjustment had already been made in November, but we were surprised by the final results of inflation”, said the minister.

The sector that will receive the most resources is health, with 3.5 trillion pesos more; and agriculture will be left with another 3 billion pesos.

“The total budget increase in these two sectors is really considerable. This is because of the importance and the fact that the health and agrarian reforms are in the middle. In the case of agriculture, they are almost triple that of last year, due to their relevance, projects and also the resources go to a fertilizer subsidy that will be more regularized this year,” said the head of the Treasury portfolio.

In the case of health, there is an important addition to what was stipulated in November, but, according to Ocampo, the increase is almost 28 percent.

«This also provides the basis for what will be the health budget for the coming years, including some resources that will be maintained depending on the reform project that is approved,» he added.

Another 3 trillion pesos will go to the Treasury sectorthat will concentrate on programs of the popular economy.

“In the same way, a part of the financial decisions of the Government and programs such as credit inclusion in the popular economy that are of the highest priority for public entities and there are other program resources for the mass transportation systems of the cities”, highlight .

Social inclusion and reconciliation will have another 1.8 trillion pesos; Mines and Energy spending 1.6 trillion pesos; Education in 1.5 trillion pesos; and Housing in another 1.5 trillion pesos.

For the transport sector, 1.3 trillion pesos will go; for Defense and Police, 700,000 million pesos; and for Environment, 600,000 million pesos.

«In the case of Housing, it is also about resources for the water sector, other sectors that will have a more modest budget are, for example, statistical information, which will remain with 500,000 million pesos and will be for the multipurpose cadastre, to a greater extent. measure,» added Ocampo.

In turn, Diego Guevara, Vice Minister General of the Ministry of Finance, explained that the resources of the Ministry of Equality do not appear because they are already guaranteed.

The budget improvement bill was presented in the extraordinary sessions of the Congress of the Republic.