Former minister Alejandro Gaviria talks about the recently created budget crisis in which the Government tried to confiscate 13 billion pesos. But he assures that the danger will not pass: “Minister Guillermo Alfonso Jaramillo spends health money on ‘jam’, white elephants and bureaucracy.”
All presidents are frustrated by the inflexibility of the budget, and when the Minister of Finance tells them: “Look, I’m writing three checks, one for the pension, one for the universal contribution system, and one to pay off the debt,” and there’s 80% there. Some of the money is gone, and there are expirations in the future, everyone is fed up. But they respected the rules of this budget process. This is the first time I’ve seen a President make a deliberate effort to go beyond this normal blasé and say: “I will operate outside the organic budget law.”
It was both. Bad calculation; I believe that even if errors are judged, there are still problems of ignorance and incompetence. For example, in the error decision, the attachment is not revived; everything is in the text of the decree, not in the annex as it should be in the details of the projects, which means that if they want to change the course of action later, they will have to do it by decree, the administration cannot do this from the Budget. So there is something wrong, it seems like incompetence…
Beyond the inadequacy, to answer directly, I believe that the Government is in a period where there are only two priorities: first, policy, which includes continuing to consolidate the loyalty of its traditional members and perhaps win over others, and for this the budget is essential. Second, reforms in Congress. He will devote himself to this.
Never, even though this country has historically suffered from these evils. When a person has more autonomy or more discretion, he or she can better use the budget to achieve political goals or objectives. The president has been repeating for a long time that he does not like the direction of the budget. He’s going regional, he wants to do it differently. What was done had a political purpose; Maybe it wasn’t just politics, but it was clear that he had to do this by following the rules.
Politics and elections are almost the same. Incredibly, María Isabel, the 2026 elections are already very present in political discussions about the country and the Government. For example, this debate has gone further than ever before.
This is a very strange thing. He has discussed this issue in recent weeks, arguing that the Historical Pact should become a political party and win the 2026 elections.
There is the most disturbing element behind this, and that is that the President predicts that his government will fall short in many of its plans. Recently, I prepared a half-serious, half-joking list and described ten major unrealizable projects, which I called ‘anti-development plan’.
The first to draw strong attention was former minister Juan Camilo Restrepo, who said it eloquently: “The budget is not a store economy, it is not a petty cash register.” I think there are two things going on behind this verdict of error, María Isabel. The government realized that this caused a lot of opposition but also fell into a trap. Since the projects were not included in the budget annex, they could not be uploaded to the Integrated Financial Information System (SIIF) and no one could carry them out. We already know that the economy grew by less than 1 percent and more than 06 percent in the last quarter of last year, and that the Government was paralyzed instead of dedicating itself to execution. The same situation existed in road investments; payments made to concessionaires would be in default. Then the Minister of Finance necessarily said to the President: “Look, the economy slowed down and we were paralyzed, just when we had to invest in what economists call counter-cyclical policies.”
This incident cost two of the most important government officials. Planning Director Jorge Iván González and Budget Director. These officials told the President that this was clearly anti-tech and they eventually left.
What is said there is that bulk items always exist, they give discretion, but I believe there is something else going on here. Congress approves some items on schedule, but the Organic Budget Regulation says they must be done by project and recorded in an annex. What’s different this time is that the President’s instruction on different prioritization was not supposed to happen in January this year, but in July last year, when the Annual Operational Investment Program POAI was held. The budget law was approved and then, six months later, when the decree was being issued, he tried to change things…
Six months later this happened! Why doesn’t the President say “I want this” when making investment programming? He wanted more discretion, more autonomy, but he did it at the wrong time. Violating the Organic Budget Regulation and all financial regulations.
It is the duty of the minister of finance. If you don’t say no, you will fail in your tasks.
This is where the intention emerges. Whatever happened, this intention could not be realized. Colombia, a country with strong institutions, got the Government to reverse this bad decree and perhaps their intention to almost literally seize these resources was fortunately frustrated for the country.
Over the last two weeks, the country has begun to discuss certain aspects of our budget rules that it had never discussed before, and that’s a good thing. But my concerns continue. For example, I have a specific idea about health. There, a major budget item was approved that allowed the Minister of Health to spend. In practice, it is the determination of the resources that should be invested especially in medicines and treatments.
There will probably not be funds to pay for the so-called maximum budget, because the minister has already spent that money on the ‘jam’, bureaucracy and white elephants he promised all over the country.
I believe that for the system to work, there is a budget allocation of five billion pesos, which should be used mostly to cover the treatment costs of the people that the government manages as pocket money. This somewhat reduced intention is still present and continues to be implemented in some sectors.
He has an effective diplomacy that should be recognized. But this is a strategy to seek external validation for some of the abuses that occurred in Colombia. But I have a more specific concern that we share: reform in general and healthcare reform in particular. There is a lot at stake politically. And this political health quadrant is so decisive for the future of the Government that Someone who does everything possible to get approved. It is worrying that for a State reform such as health, the State is destroyed, all institutions are transferred and priority is given as it should not be. This is a destructive side of politics.
Not just community action boards; to mayors, congressmen, governors. And this worries me. M.It’s like something we already know comes out, but by coming out so harshly it makes it even more tragic, more problematic, and that’s ineffectiveness. There is no concrete discussion of these issues in the Congress of the Colombian political system.
I don’t know where they are. I made a comment about the Liberal Party when the former president and director of the party, César Gaviria, said very harshly that he was very concerned about President Petro’s statements from an institutional perspective. The obvious question is: So what will the Liberal Party do as a government party? What is the Conservative Party doing? What are the ‘Greens’ doing? What does ‘U’ do? In fact, it seems a bit paradoxical to me that the strongest defense and the fiercest opposition to health care reform coexist in the Green Party. The lack of ideological coherence of any political common ground is a tragedy for the country. This reveals that although Colombia has strong institutions and consolidated rules of the game, it has a rather worn-out policy.
I describe this situation with an expression I used in a little book I wrote on the subject, and that is: destructive inertia. I see this in the last two years. And, to paraphrase an expert on Latin American populism, I see a persistent practice of polarization. So polarization emerges not as something marginal but as a deliberate goal of the President.
Strengthen loyalties, make some of these problems invisible, and maybe get to a story, an effective narrative that will hide what’s going on. And it turned out that the change was a simulation.
The most vivid impression I had, ironically because of its symbolism, were the M19 flags surrounding the Palace. This caused me a lot of rejection. That’s why I’m underlining the polarization that the idea that the President repeated many times when he came into government but never voiced again was to get a national agreement. He has completely disappeared from his speeches because his government is taking the opposite path.
MARIA ISABEL RUEDA
Exclusive to EL TIEMPO
Source: Exame
