Last week, the draft General Budget of the Nation (PGN) for 2023 received the approval of Congress in its first debate. With an amount of $405.6 billion, of which $74.02 billion will be for investment$253.6 billion will go to operations and $77.9 billion correspond to debt service.
(Strengthen the country from agriculture, an objective of the Development Plan).
Although several additions of resources were achieved for some sectors, and an increase of 6.3% in investment was achieved in relation to the budget for the term of 2022, several of the objections that were presented from the Legislature are related to the resources that the regions will receive.
The National Planning Department (DNP) is the entity in charge of presenting to Congress the preliminary and indicative regionalization of the investment component of the budget. According to the document, of the total resources there are $53.01 billion that would be regionalized, another $9.1 billion to regionalize or predetermined regionalizations, and $11.8 billion corresponding to resources that are not distributed among the regions.
According to the report he delivered last week, for next year, the region with the highest allocation in 2023 would be Antioquiawith $6.15 billion, which represents an increase of 11.8% in the budget in relation to the current term ($5.5 billion).
Of this amount, the bulk of the budget would go to transportation ($4.48 billion) and social inclusion and reconciliation ($1.69 billion).
Behind this is Bogotá DC, with an allocation of $5.05 billion, where the largest investment is concentrated in the sector of social inclusion and reconciliation ($1.8 billion), work ($665,865 million) and education ($664,889 million). The investment budget of the capital shows an increase of 3.9%.
(Government confirms that this year there will be no health reform).
And it is also followed by Valle, which would keep $3.46 billion of the budget investment next year. In this there was an increase in investment of 16.8%. About a third of the resources of the national budget for the region ($1.07 billion) will be allocated to the social inclusion and reconciliation sector.
Cundinamarca, for its part, appears as the fourth region with the highest allocation in terms of investment within the regionalized budget ($2.71 billion), and would see an increase in 2023 of 20.2%. The amounts of Santander also stand out, with $2.52 trillion, after an increase of 29.6%, of Bolívar ($2.48 trillion), which increased by 28.5%, and of Atlántico ($2.3 trillion ), which would rise 15.7%.
On the other side are the departments that have the lowest investment budget allocations.
The lowest is in the department of Guainía. Despite the fact that a 25.6% increase in the resources of the territory is projected for 2023, these only reach $174,000 million; in Vaupés the budget doubles, from $90,000 million to $189,000 million, but it continues to be one of the lowest allocations, and the investment budgets for Guaviare ($293,000 million), Vichada ($301,000 million) and Amazonas ($332,000 million) are also among the lowest. ).
(Tecnoglass rang the bell of the New York Stock Exchange).
Congressmen ask for more resources
In the midst of the discussion between the economic commissions (third and fourth) of the Senate and the House that took place last week, several congressmen expressed their intention to obtain more resources for their regions.
Such is the case of Senator Efraín Cepeda, rapporteur coordinator of the budget project, who assures that “a vote of confidence” was given in a well-constructed budget, but that for the second debate, the Atlantic bench hopes to ‘balance the pitch’.
“It cannot be that while the budget increases by more than $4 billion, the regionalized budget of the Atlantic loses almost $250,000 million, since there are substantial falls in sports and recreation, which falls 52%; Prosecution, justice and law in 65%; judicial branch at 47%,” he said.
Also from the Caribbean, Senator Liliana Bitar called for review Cordoba assignment, which is $1.9 trillion. “When we review our departmental budget, we are concerned that a department like Córdoba decreases in real terms by 7%, and one of the sectors that decreased the most was sports and culture. We ask for the second debate that this sector be taken into account, and thus be able to build a more equitable budget for the regions”. she said.
Another senator who expressed her disagreement was Liliana Benavides. “An issue that worries us enormously is the regionalized budget of the south of Colombia, of the department of Nariño, a department that has all its hopes, because in the region 80% of its inhabitants voted for President Petro. We look with concern at regional connectivity, the department goes from $30,000 million in tertiary roads to $7,554 million”, she increased. For Nariño, the regionalized investment budget in 2023 is $2.26 billion.
Laura Lucia Becerra Elejalde
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