The orphaned points left by the cut in the General Budget of the Nation

Once the cut in the General Budget of the Nation that had been announced by the Ministry of Finance to address the cash crisis faced by the National Government will be defined, the discussion focuses on the impacts that this modification will have on expenses. on the country’s economy, especially in this context of deceleration that has been felt for several months and has various sectors in the red.

In total there will be $20 billion less those executed in the remainder of the year, of which 67% of this falls on operating expenses ($13.4 billion) and the remaining 33% on the investment budget ($6.4 trillion). This had to be done because the tax collection revenues were finally lower than initially projected and there was not all the money that was expected.

For Henry Amorocho, professor of Public Finance at the Universidad del Rosario, beyond the operating resources, which ultimately form part of the day-to-day life of the National Government entities, the alert point should be in the investment areas, since they are what ultimately make the economy move.

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“Cut investment expenses in a time of economic recovery It is not good news and of course the idea of ​​reporting that investment spending will only be subject to postponement in spending that has not been executed, since it basically leaves the activity of this quarter still, that is, the quarter that is going between June, July, August and you could even say that September-October we are going to have a very quiet activity,” explained this teacher.

To this he added that it cannot be overlooked that despite this collection, we must not take our eyes off the tax collection, which for him is not paying off and “definitely the most likely thing is that a new cut of approximately $10 billion pesos.”

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In order to better understand the sectors that were most affected in terms of investment, Portafolio reviewed each of the postponed entities and concepts, finding that one of these will undoubtedly be infrastructure, both from the Invías and from the ANI, which will also affect the country’s road development.

Here it must be said that for this sector, the Minhacienda had allocated close to $1.2 billion for investment to the National Infrastructure Agency (ANI), resources that, according to those close to the sector, would go to improve and address critical points of some works. , but the item was never directly assigned to specific projects nor did it assign any Certificate of Budget Availability (CDP).

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From this value, the Government decided to cut $1.16 billion, A figure that is practically equivalent to the $1.1 billion that it would cost to address the 55 critical points that have been identified on the road between Bogotá and Villavicencio.

It was even learned that of this total number of points to attend to on this road, the Government had planned to allocate $380,000 million, through a transfer of resources to the National Highway Institute, to intervene in the 16 critical points whose situation requires priority attention, but not managed to do so and they also became part of the budget cut.

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For sources in the sector, it is clear that any eventuality on the main route to the Llano, now that winter has arrived with force, could leave that region incommunicado with the center of the country and generate price effects on the family basket, since the route The Transversal del Sisga is blocked due to the winter season, while on the Transversal del Cusiana, in Boyacá, the passage of cargo vehicles is not allowed.

But, in addition, when analyzing the cut there is an item that has infrastructure experts thinking, and that could affect a key area, the road between Medellín and Quibdó, in Chocó, for which President Petro himself committed to allocate $500,000 million from the ANI to the National Highway Institute (Invías), but this item Not only does it have a low level of execution, but they took $60,000 million from the ‘Avanza’ program in the cut.

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According to ANI, to date the resources have not been allocated to address this situation, since they will have to go through the National Planning Department (DNP) and the Ministry of Finance, and it is barely progressing in a preliminary phase.

Another of those affected by this cut will be the housing sector, where the Ministry of Finance will cut $609,000 million, of which $219,017 million will be from the National Housing Fund (Fonvivienda). Of this last value, $214,272 million will be from the item “access to housing solutions”, which will have a total cut of $398,985 million, corresponding to the concept of various access mechanisms for access to housing (new, used, social rental and self-management). which would put some of the Government’s subsidy programs into play.

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Sources from the housing sector indicated in turn that this value would correspond to the amount allocated for the controversial ‘Cambia Mi Casa’ program, designed to subsidize housing improvements, a financial relief between eight and 18 minimum wages, which would benefit more than 400,000 homes. According to sector analysts, to date there have been less than 10,000 reliefs granted and due to the complexity of allocation it was the most feasible for the cut.

Guillermo Herrera, president of the Colombian Chamber of Construction (Camacol) told El Tiempo that the Minister of Housing, Catalina Velásco, promised not to touch the resources of the 50,000 subsidies from Mi Casa Ya this year and even to look for solutions for the 17,000 coverages missing, so industry experts do not consider that this program could ever be touched.

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However, the Ministry of Housing is separating the accounts to provide details on what specifically the cut will be made, but so far it has not given further details.

In addition to this cut to infrastructure and housing, another point that calls The attention has to do with the snip of more than $1 billion to the investment that the Ministry of Finance had projected for the optimization of the management and administration model of the Portfolio of State Enterprises, which among other things seeks to boost the assets of the Nation in the medium and long term.

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To this we must also add, although they are operational, the $44,000 million that was removed from the budget of the Risk Management Unit, precisely on the eve of the La Niña phenomenon beginning to intensify and resources are needed to prevent and address the emergencies that may arise.