Given the announcement that it intends to execute funds for public works in 2021 in just 4 months, experts emphasize the mediocre execution capacity.
It is illegal for the government to plan to spend the budget for public works for 2021 in 4 months, say opposition deputies. This is due to the fact that the plan is built on the projection of the revenue that the country will have and, if there are changes in the Budget Law, it must be authorized by the Legislative Assembly.
ARENA MP René Portillo Cuadra explains that President Nayib Bukele would make it unconstitutional by wanting to spend a one-year budget in January, February, March and April, and in May, at the start of a new Legislative Assembly, to claim a another budget, because there can be no two in the same fiscal year.
You may be interested in: Bukele’s plan will require an increase in VAT or new taxes
He adds that President Bukele’s statements are irresponsible because the decrees are still in the final draft, therefore they have not reached the Presidential Chamber and he cannot say that they will be vetoed or sanctioned.
“It seems to me irresponsible to say that it will be spent in four months when the budget depends on state revenues, if there is not enough revenue because the country’s economy is depressed. There is also a legal and constitutional problem, the 12-month budget cannot be spent in four months, because the money is designed to pay salaries, debts and the entire functioning of the state “, says Portillo Cuadra.
However, yesterday Bukele clarified that he is referring to the investment budget in public works and not in relation to salaries, as suggested by the Minister of Public Works, Romeo Herrera, in a tweet that he later deleted.
Tatiana Marroquín, an expert economist, considers it illegal for the president to want to spend a year’s money in 4 months because the budget is divided into projects and articles, in addition to the fact that only the Legislative Assembly, according to the Constitution, has the power to reform the Budget Law.
“To spend the budget in four months, it should be spent not in accordance with the budget law. In order to be able to spend it, it has to move what will be spent in the last months at the beginning of the year and any budget movement must go through the Assembly “, he explains.
SEE ALSO: The executive has set a trap in the draft budget for deputies, says the president of the Assembly
He adds that it is unwise and arbitrary, as well as financially impossible, to want to make an expense of this magnitude, because the budget is a projection of how the funds that are planned to have from tax collection revenues will be spent. , and if they do not meet the collection objectives, they will not be able to spend either.
According to Marroquín, the government has the same budget for public works for 2021 as this year, which is about $ 1.2 billion, and this year they could not spend what they had planned for investments in works.
“The government’s ability to carry out public works is very mediocre, it is very low, they have not been able to execute the money they had, much less will they be able to do it so quickly in four months “, he said.
He also warned that “if they were able to find the money, it would continue to be illegal and arbitrary, it is also not viable because you can see how the investment projects were executed, they were not efficient in in this sense, they did not reach even 70% of the investment of the last budget, much less one of 1,200 million dollars as in 2021 ”.
FMLN MP Shafick Hándal points out that President Bukele has “corrected the page” of the budget by eliminating unnecessary expenses, such as $ 57 million for consultancy, the details of which I do not know.
In addition, MPs have eliminated excess funding for destinations not explained in the draft and that the Salvadoran president has now announced that there will be investments in works, where no health and education items have been withdrawn, in addition to an increase in 5% of public employees who earned up to $ 1,000 and did not have a rank.
Hándal also explains that raising the minimum pension was a proposal of the FMLN and that now President Bukele has established it as a conquest.
You may be interested in: Bukele’s government plans to spend the entire 2021 public works budget in four months and then ask for more money with a new Assembly
“He is irresponsible, he does not lead the country, but he believes that it is his personal property and that he can do whatever he wants. With this, let’s say that in May he will have another Assembly, he has already revealed his main plan, to have the centralized power in the presidency “, says Hándal.
“Ignorance in supine position”
The executive director of the National Development Foundation (Funde), Roberto Rubio, described this idea as “supine ignorance” because I do not understand that the only way to have another budget for the rest of the year, even if they have a majority in the Assembly, is to increase incomes and this will be done only with debts.
For him, trying to spend the budget in 4 months is almost impossible, it is a sign of ignorance, “especially when it comes to a rather inept government that has not even managed to build the El Salvador hospital. It is not just a matter of money, but of capacity.
“Wherever you see it, it’s not credible,” said Carmen Aída Lazo, an economist and dean of the School of Economics and Business (ESEN), who added that the current administration “still doesn’t know how the state and its processes work.”
Rubio also added that this, far from being a serious announcement based on technique, is an electoral maneuver that tries to “demoralize” the opposition, showing that a slippery victory for the president’s party is inevitable.