The finance minister tried on Monday to change the version of what was announced by Bukele and said that “no one would think” about spending the budget for works in the first months of the year. For the political opposition, doing so would be unrealistic.
The deputies of the Legislative Assembly reacted on Monday to the statements of President Nayib Bukele about the attempt to execute the funds for the whole year 2021 destined for public works in just 4 months, and then to ask the next Assembly for more money.
“And so that the works do not stop, we will invest what they have allocated for the year, in 4 months,” the president wrote in a summary of a video from December 27 that explains in which areas the funds will be allocated.
SEE: Bukele Government intends to spend the entire 2021 public works budget in four months and then request more money with a new Assembly
This statement was later supported by the Minister of Public Works, Romeo Rodríguez, who stated in a radio interview: “As the president said, we will use the budget for the whole year in four months. Then, in the new Legislative Assembly, we will ask for the necessary resources to be able to carry out works for the benefit of the country ”.
According to the parliamentarians, this would be illegal and, in addition, they emphasize that it is something unreal.
FMLN MP Yanci Urbina said he apparently already regretted saying it.
“They commit illegality after unfortunate illegality that what we see is a government that promotes illegality,” he asked.
In this regard, the deputy Margarita Escobar, from ARENA, declared that the general budget of the nation is annual and that it is planned in this way.
“If President Bukele decides to spend it in 4 months and in the hope that the next Assembly will give him another annual budget, it seems a bit unreal to me,” Escobar criticized.
In his turn, the PDC deputy Rodolfo Parker explained that the documentation related to the general budget is a set of decrees, and the Constitution imposes it, the Constitutional Chamber reaffirmed it. “The overall budget needs to be balanced and balanced, the anticipated spending needs to be supported by that funding,” Parker said.
For his part, the President of the Assembly and the PCN MP, Mario Ponce, commented that “any use of resources in a capricious way or who want to use the resources in May, June, July and December in any way fall within the misappropriation of funds. “.
“In the very particular case of this state body, this server can not spend the funds, I have to spend only January, February, March and April, I can not reach the funds in May. We cannot spend the resources of a whole year “, exemplified Ponce.
However, on Monday, Finance Minister Alejandro Zelaya tried to change the version of what Bukele had announced and said “no one would think” to spend the budget on the works in the first months of the year. “We should be crazy … it’s impossible,” the official said.
AND: The execution of the budget for 2021 works in 4 months is unrealistic and it is outlawed
At the time, the executive director of the National Development Foundation (Funde), Roberto Rubio, described this idea raised by the Government as “supine ignorance” because I do not understand that the only way to have another budget for the rest of the year, although you get a majority in the Assembly, is to increase revenues 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’s not just a matter of money, it’s a matter of capacity. “