Development Plan would propose investments for $1.154 billion

While the government of Gustavo Petro gives the final stitches to what will be the Development Plan of his administration ‘Colombia World Power of Life’, Portafolio knew what would be a draft of the articles of law which will be filed on Monday, February 6 before the Congress of the republic.

(See: At what point is the Development Plan and what will be its axes?).

The document is made up of 240 articles, and among them the resources that the Nation will require to materialize the goals of the plan are defined. From the National Planning Department (DNP) it was clarified that said document is not the final one, and that the Government is still working on the final text, but one of the elements that most attracts attention is the amount of investment planned for the four-year period, which would be $1,154 billion.

This amount represents $106 trillion additional to what was foreseen in the Pluriannual Investment Plan 2022-2026 contained in the document with the bases of the National Development Plan, which was delivered by the DNP in November.

(See: Regions will put 15% of the resources of the Development Plan).

According to the draft of the project, half of the resources ($577.4 billion) will be financed through the General Budget of the Nation. The General Participation System (SGP), on the other hand, will contribute 23.3% of the resources in these four years, which is equivalent to $268.8 billion.

The territories will in turn be responsible for contributing $145.8 billion to the investments contemplated in the Plan (12.6% of the total), while public companies will do the same with $106.4 trillion (9.2%), $47.4 billion will be received through the General Royalty System (4.1% of the resources) and another $9.1 billion through cooperation mechanisms, which is equivalent to 0.8% of the total budget.

In an interview with Portfolio, the director of National Planning, Jorge Iván González, He highlighted in the past days that the National Development Plan of the Gustavo Petro Administration, unlike others, does not focus on sectors but on five major strategies. It is with this structure that the distribution of resources is also defined.

“An important change that we achieved was to move from the sectoral to the big strategies, and to make the budget not by sectors but by strategies. In land use planning, for example, there is housing, the environment, they are strategies with various sectors”, González pointed out.

From this point of view, the strategy known as ‘Human security and social justice’ will be the one that receives the largest amount in these four years, corresponding to $743.7 billion. A second axis, baptized as ‘Regional convergence’, and that will focus on closing the gaps in the different territories, will receive $138.4 billion, while the strategy of ‘Internationalization, productive transformation and climate action’ will have $114.4 billion.

For the fourth transformation defined by the Government in the Plan, the ‘Human Right to Food’, $46.1 billion will be required, while in ‘Ordinance of the territory around water and environmental justice’ the provisions will be $28.8 billion.

(See: Government presented the bases of the National Development Plan 2022-2026).

According to the draft of the project, $83.4 trillion will also be appropriated to allocate them to a macroeconomic stability strategy. Within the National Plan of Public Investments to 2026, it also includes, in a transversal way, a Pluriannual Investment Plan for Peace, which is estimated at $50.4 billion.

Additionally, in the project draft, it is also determined that “theThe norms of this law that affect resources of the General Budget of the Nation, must be subject to budget availability, the Medium-Term Expenditure Framework and the Medium-Term Fiscal Framework”.

One of the main inputs for the construction of the National Development Plan is the concept issued by the National Planning Council as an autonomous body.

One of the observations highlighted in an interview with Portafolio by the president of this body, Amanda Vargas Prieto, it is precisely to improve the presentation of the Pluriannual Investment Plan, which is the one that decides the budget to be executed based on goals and indicators.

“When giving us the bases, the investment plan is not included beyond the fact that there is a package of $1,040 billion (pre-draft figure) distributed in the five strategies and that present a series of indicators and goals that are still subject to modification”, highlighted Vargas.

(See: Regions and victims, the agenda of the National Development Plan).

According to the president of the National Planning Council, this has been a historical complaint in the presentation of development plans, but also, The challenge of this plan is in the allocation of the budget by strategies.

LAURA LUCIA BECERRA ELEJALDE
Journalist Portfolio